Great Vowel Shift: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 21:43, 9 August 2008


The Great Vowel Shift is a phonetic shift in the English language which separates the Middle English era from the Early Modern English era, or the general Modern English era.

Time Period

Possible Reasons

Simplified Version of the Shift


Vowels
Front Central Back
Unround Unrounded Rounded
High iː - ɪ uː - ʊ
Mid eː - ɛ ə/ʌ oː - ɔ
Low æ aː/a
All entries are: Tense - Lax

The shift involves most long and tense vowels to basically "move up" or become diphthongised. This would mean that /aː/ shifted up to /eː/, and /eː/ shifted up to /iː/, and /iː/ being already at the top, became the diphthong /aj/. On the other side, /oː/ shifted to /uː/, and /uː/ become the diphthong /aw/. If the /uː/ did not originally have two syllables, it became /ʌ/, and likewise many /a/ sounds had shifted to /æ/ in monosyllabic endings.

Vowels
Front Back
aj aw

Affects on Grammar

Examples

Sources and Further Reading