{"history":[],"article":{"id":"05efe8c2-422e-4641-98a7-f89e3da6d148","title":"Middle English phonology","slug":"middle-english-phonology","content":":::summary\n:::\n\n# \n**[Middle English](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-english) [phonology](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonology)** is necessarily somewhat speculative since it is preserved only as a [written language](https://bliptext.com/articles/written-language).\nNevertheless, there is a very large [text corpus](https://bliptext.com/articles/text-corpus) of Middle English.\nThe dialects of Middle English vary greatly over both time and place, and in contrast with Old English and Modern English, spelling was usually phonetic rather than conventional.\nWords were generally spelled according to how they sounded to the person writing a text, rather than according to a formalised system that might not accurately represent the way the writer's dialect was pronounced, as Modern English is today.\nThe Middle English speech of the city of [London](https://bliptext.com/articles/london) in the late 14th century (essentially, the speech of [Geoffrey Chaucer](https://bliptext.com/articles/geoffrey-chaucer)) is used as the standard Middle English dialect in teaching and when specifying \"the\" grammar or phonology of Middle English.\nIt is this form that is described below, unless otherwise indicated.\nIn the rest of the article, abbreviations are used as follows:\n\n# Sound inventory\nThe [surface sounds](https://bliptext.com/articles/phone-phonetics) of Chaucer's Middle English (whether [allophones](https://bliptext.com/articles/allophones) or [phonemes](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonemes)) are shown in the tables below.\nPhonemes in **bold** were added across Middle English; those in italics were removed during the period.\n\n## Consonants\n1. The exact nature of Middle English r is unknown.\nThis article uses ⟨r⟩ indiscriminately.\n\n## Consonant allophones\nThe sounds marked in parentheses in the table above are allophones:\n\n### Voiced fricatives\nIn Old English,, , were allophones of , , , respectively, occurring between [vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel) or [voiced consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiced-consonant).\nThat led to many alternations: hūs ('house') vs. hūses ('of a house') ; wīf ('woman') vs. wīfes ('of a woman').\nIn Middle English, voiced allophones become phonemes and have become solidly established in Modern English as separate phonemes by several sources:\nThe status of the sources in Chaucer's Middle English is as follows:\nThe strongest distinction was between and because of the large number of borrowings from [Old French](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-french).\nIt is also the only distinction that is consistently indicated in spelling, as ⟨f⟩ and ⟨v⟩ respectively.\nsometimes appears as ⟨z⟩, especially in borrowings from Greek and sometimes as ⟨s⟩.\nBoth and are spelled ⟨th⟩.\n\n## Vowels\n1 The Old English sequences, produced late Middle English and had apparently passed through early Middle English : OE grōwan ('grow') → LME.\nHowever, early Middle English that was produced by [Middle English breaking](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-english-breaking) became late Middle English : OE tōh (tough') → EME → LME.\nApparently, early became before the occurrence of Middle English breaking, which generated new occurrences of, which later became.\n**Monophthongs**\nMiddle English had a distinction between [close-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/close-mid-vowel) and [open-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-mid-vowel) [long vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel-length) but no corresponding distinction in short vowels.\nThe behaviour of [open syllable lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable-lengthening) seems to indicate that the short vowels were open-mid in quality, but according to Lass, they were close-mid.\n(There is some direct documentary evidence: in early texts, open-mid was spelled ⟨ea⟩, but both and were spelled ⟨eo⟩.) Later, the short vowels were in fact lowered to become open-mid vowels, as is shown by their values in Modern English.\nThe [front rounded vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/front-rounded-vowel) existed in the southwest dialects of Middle English, which developed from the standard [Late West Saxon dialect](https://bliptext.com/articles/west-saxon-dialect) of [Old English](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-english), but not in the standard Middle English dialect of London.\nThe close vowels and are direct descendants of the corresponding Old English vowels and were indicated as ⟨u⟩.\n(In the standard dialect of Middle English, the sounds became and ; in [Kentish](https://bliptext.com/articles/kentish-dialect), they became and .) may have existed in learned speech in loanwords from Old French, also spelled ⟨u⟩, but, as it merged with, becoming in Modern English, rather than , it can be assumed that was the vernacular pronunciation that was used in French-derived words.\nThe mid-front rounded vowels likewise had existed in the southwest dialects but not in the standard Middle English dialect of London and were indicated as ⟨o⟩.\nSometime in the 13th century, they became unrounded and merged with the normal front mid vowels.\nThey derived from the [Old English](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-english) diphthongs and.\nThere is no direct evidence that there was ever a distinction between open-mid and close-mid, but it can be assumed because of the corresponding distinction in the unrounded mid front vowels.\nwould have derived directly from [Old English](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-english), and derived from the open syllable lengthening of short , from the [Old English](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-english) short diphthong.\nThe quality of the short open vowel is unclear.\nIn early Middle English, it was presumably central since it represented the coalescence of the Old English vowels and.\nDuring [Middle English breaking](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-english-breaking), it could not have been a front vowel since rather than was introduced after it.\nDuring Early Modern English, it was fronted in most environments to in southern England, and it and even closer values are found in the contemporary speech of southern England, North America and the Southern Hemisphere.\nIt remains in much of Northern England, Scotland and the Caribbean.\nMeanwhile, the long open vowel, which developed later because of open syllable lengthening, was.\nIt was gradually fronted, to successively, and , in the 16th and the 17th centuries.\n\n### Diphthongs\nAll of the above diphthongs came about during the Middle English.\nOld English had a number of diphthongs, but all of them had been reduced to monophthongs in the transition to Middle English.\nDiphthongs in Middle English came about by various processes and at various time periods and tended to change their quality over time.\nThe changes above occurred mostly between early and late Middle English.\nEarly Middle English had a distinction between [open-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-mid-vowel) and [close-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/close-mid-vowel) diphthongs, and all of the [close-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/close-mid-vowel) diphthongs had been eliminated by late Middle English.\nThe following processes produced the above diphthongs:\n\n# Phonological processes\nThe following sections describe the major phonological processes occurring between written Late West Saxon, the standard written form of Old English, and the end of Middle English, which is conventionally dated to around 1500 AD.\n\n## Homorganic lengthening\nIn late Old English, vowels were lengthened before certain clusters:, , , ,.\nLater, the vowels in many of those words were shortened again, which gives the appearance that no lengthening happened, but evidence from the [Ormulum](https://bliptext.com/articles/ormulum) indicates otherwise.\nFor details see [Phonological history of Old English: Vowel lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonological-history-of-old-english).\n\n## Stressed vowel changes\n[Late West Saxon](https://bliptext.com/articles/west-saxon-dialect), the standard written form of Old English, included matched pairs of short and long vowels, including seven pairs of pure vowels (the monophthongs ) and two pairs of height-harmonic diphthongs: and.\nTwo additional pairs of diphthongs, and, existed in earlier Old English but had been reduced to and , respectively, by late Old English.\nIn the transition to Middle English, the system underwent major changes by eliminating the diphthongs and leaving only one pair of low vowels but with a vowel distinction appearing in the long mid vowels:\nThat left an asymmetric system consisting of five short vowels and six long vowels, with additional front rounded vowels in the southwest.\nSome symmetry was restored by [open syllable lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable-lengthening), which restored a long low vowel.\n\n## Reduction and loss of unstressed vowels\nUnstressed vowels were gradually confused in late Old English although spelling lagged behind because a standardized spelling system existed.\nBy Early Middle English, all unstressed vowels were written ⟨e⟩, which probably represented.\nAlso, in late Old English, final unstressed became ; during the Middle English period, this final was dropped when it was part of an inflectional syllable but remained when part of the root like seven or in derivational endings like written). Around Chaucer's time, final was dropped. Inflectional evidence suggests that occurred first when the following word began with a vowel. A century or so later, unstressed also dropped in the plural genitive ending -es (spelled -s in Modern English) and the past ending -ed.\nThe changes steadily effaced most inflectional endings:\nIn the last two examples, the stressed vowel was affected by [open-syllable lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable-lengthening).\n\n## Vocalization of and development of new diphthongs\nThe sound, which had been a post-vocalic allophone of , became vocalized to.\nThis occurred around the year 1200.\nA new set of diphthongs developed from combinations of vowel+ (either from or from pre-existing ) or vowel+ (from pre-existing ) and also from French loanwords: see [Diphthongs](https://bliptext.com/articles/) above.\n\n## Breaking\nDuring the 12th or the 13th century, was inserted between a front vowel and a following (pronounced in this context), and a vowel was inserted between a back vowel and a following (pronounced in this context).\nA short was treated as a back vowel in the process; the long equivalent did not occur in the relevant context.\nSee [H-loss](https://bliptext.com/articles/) below.\n\n## Open-syllable lengthening\nAround the 13th century, [short vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/short-vowels) were [lengthened in an open syllable](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable-lengthening) (when they followed by a single consonant that in turn was followed by another vowel).\nIn addition, non-low vowels were lowered: →, → , → , →.\nThat accounts, for example, for the vowel difference between staff and the alternative plural staves (Middle English staf vs. stāves, with open-syllable lengthening in the latter word).\nThe process was restricted in the following ways:\nThe effects of open-syllable lengthening and [trisyllabic laxing](https://bliptext.com/articles/trisyllabic-laxing) often led to differences in the stem vowel between singular and plural/genitive.\nGenerally, such differences were regularized by analogy in one direction or another but not in a consistent way:\n\n## Trisyllabic laxing\nIn late Old English, vowels were shortened before clusters of two consonants when two or more syllables followed.\nLater in Middle English, the process was expanded, and applied to all vowels when two or more syllables followed.\nThis led to the Modern English variations between divine vs. divinity, school vs. scholarly, grateful vs. gratitude, etc.\nIn some cases, later changes have led to apparently anomalous results, e.g. south vs. southern with only two syllables (but while trisyllabic laxing applied).\nThe change is still fairly productive in Modern English.\n\n## Pre-cluster shortening\nIn late Old English, vowels were shortened before clusters of three consonants:\nAs shown by ghastly, this shortening occurred before the raising of OE to EME, which occurred in the transition to Middle English.\nLater in Middle English, vowels were shortened before clusters of two consonants, except before and in some cases where [homorganic lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/) applied.\nExamples:\n\n## Reduction of double consonants\nDouble ([geminated](https://bliptext.com/articles/gemination)) consonants were reduced to single ones.\nThis took place after open syllable lengthening; the syllable before a geminate was a closed syllable and so vowels were not lengthened before (originally) doubled consonants.\nThe loss of gemination may have been stimulated by its small [functional load](https://bliptext.com/articles/functional-load) since few [minimal pairs](https://bliptext.com/articles/minimal-pairs) of words existed that were distinguished solely by that feature.\n\n## H-loss\nThe phoneme, when it occurred in the [syllable coda](https://bliptext.com/articles/syllable-coda), is believed to have had two allophones: the [voiceless palatal fricative](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiceless-palatal-fricative) , occurring after [front vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/front-vowel), and the [voiceless velar fricative](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiceless-velar-fricative) , occurring after [back vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/back-vowel).\nThe usual spelling in both cases was ⟨gh⟩, which is retained today in words like night and taught.\nThose sounds were lost during later Middle English and Early Modern English.\nThe timing of the process depended on the dialect; the fricatives were still pronounced in some educated speech in the 16th century, but they had disappeared by the late 17th.\nLoss of the fricatives was accompanied by some [compensatory lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/compensatory-lengthening) or [diphthongization](https://bliptext.com/articles/diphthongization) of preceding vowels.\nIn some cases, the velar fricative developed into ; as such, the preceding vowel was shortened, and the of a diphthong was absorbed.\nSome developments are illustrated below:\nThe variable outcome, along with other variable changes and the ambiguity of the Middle English spelling ⟨ou⟩ (either or in Early Middle English, accounts for the numerous pronunciations of Modern English words in -ough- (e.g. though, through, bough, rough, trough, thought, with -ough- pronounced respectively).\nspelled -gh- is realized as even today in some traditional dialects of [northern England](https://bliptext.com/articles/northern-england) and more famously in [Scots](https://bliptext.com/articles/scots-language).\nSome accents in [northern England](https://bliptext.com/articles/northern-england) lack the and instead exhibit special vowel developments in some such words: night as (sounds like neat) and in the dialectal words owt and nowt (from aught and naught, pronounced like out and nout, meaning 'anything' and 'nothing').\nThe modern phoneme most commonly appears today in the typically-Scottish word [loch](https://bliptext.com/articles/loch) and in names such as [Buchan](https://bliptext.com/articles/buchan).\nThere, the is usual in Scotland although the alternative is becoming more common among some younger speakers.\nThe same is true in Wales, in names such as [Loughor](https://bliptext.com/articles/loughor).\nEnglish-speakers from elsewhere may replace the in such cases with, but some use in imitation of the local pronunciations as they may in certain foreign words such as [Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/bach), [Kharkiv](https://bliptext.com/articles/kharkiv), [Sakhalin](https://bliptext.com/articles/sakhalin) and [chutzpah](https://bliptext.com/articles/chutzpah).\n\n## Great Vowel Shift\nThe [Great Vowel Shift](https://bliptext.com/articles/great-vowel-shift) was a fundamental change in late Middle English (post-Chaucer) and [Early Modern English](https://bliptext.com/articles/early-modern-english) that affected the pronunciation of all of the long vowels.\nThe high vowels and were [diphthongized](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel-breaking), ultimately producing the modern diphthongs and, and all other vowels were raised.\n\n## Diphthong loss\nThis is not normally considered a part of the Great Vowel Shift, but during the same time period, most pre-existing Middle English diphthongs were [monophthongized](https://bliptext.com/articles/monophthongization):\nThe remaining diphthongs developed as follows:\n\n# Vowel equivalents from Old English to Modern English\nFor a detailed description of the changes between Old English and Middle and Modern English, see the article on the [phonological history of English](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonological-history-of-english).\nA summary of the main vowel changes is presented below.\nThe spelling of Modern English largely reflects Middle English pronunciation.\n\n## Monophthongs\nThis table presents the general developments.\nMany exceptional outcomes occurred in particular environments.\nFor example, vowels were often lengthened in late Old English before, , , and vowels changed in [complex ways](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonological-history-of-english-vowels) before throughout the history of English.\nVowels were diphthongized in Middle English before, and new diphthongs arose in Middle English by the combination of vowels with Old English , → , and.\nFor more information, see the section below.\nThe only conditional development considered in detail below is Middle English open-syllable lengthening.\nIn the column on modern spelling, CV means a sequence of a single consonant followed by a vowel.\nThe Modern English vowel that is usually spelled ([Received Pronunciation](https://bliptext.com/articles/received-pronunciation):, [General American](https://bliptext.com/articles/general-american): ) does not appear in the above chart.\nIts main source is late Middle English < early and, which come from various sources: Old English and (claw < clawu, law < lagu); diphthongization before (sought < sōhte, taught < tāhte, daughter < dohtor); borrowings from [Latin](https://bliptext.com/articles/latin-language) and French (fawn < [Old French](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-french) faune, Paul < [Latin](https://bliptext.com/articles/latin-language) Paulus).\nOther sources are Early Modern English lengthening of before (salt, all); occasional shortening and later relengthening of Middle English (broad < < brād); and in [American English](https://bliptext.com/articles/american-english), lengthening of short o before [unvoiced fricatives](https://bliptext.com/articles/unvoiced-fricative) and [voiced velars](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiced-velar) (dog, long, off, cross, moth, all with in American dialects that still maintain the difference between and ).\nAs mentioned above, Modern English is derived from the Middle English of London, which is derived largely from Anglian Old English, with some admixture of West Saxon and Kentish.\nOne of the most noticeable differences among the dialects is the handling of original Old English.\nBy the time of the written Old English documents, the Old English of Kent had already unrounded to, and the late Old English of Anglia unrounded to.\nIn the West Saxon area, remained as such well into Middle English times and was written in Middle English documents from the area.\nSome words with the sound were borrowed into London Middle English, where the unfamiliar was substituted with :\nSome apparent instances of modern for Old English are actually regular developments, particularly if the is a development of earlier (West Saxon) from i-mutation of, as the normal i-mutation of in Anglian is ; for example, stern < styrne < *starnijaz, steel < stȳle < *stahliją (cf. [Old Saxon](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-saxon) stehli).\nAlso, some apparent instances of modern for Old English may actually be from the influence of a related form with unmutated : sundry < syndriġ, influenced by sundor \"apart, differently\" (compare to sunder and asunder).\n\n## Diphthongs\n\n# Sources","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-26T12:49:03.182Z","updated_at":"2025-01-26T12:49:03.182Z","search_vector":"'english':2 'middl':1 'phonolog':3","search_content":" \n \n\n# \n**[Middle English](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-english) [phonology](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonology)** is necessarily somewhat speculative since it is preserved only as a [written language](https://bliptext.com/articles/written-language).\nNevertheless, there is a very large [text corpus](https://bliptext.com/articles/text-corpus) of Middle English.\nThe dialects of Middle English vary greatly over both time and place, and in contrast with Old English and Modern English, spelling was usually phonetic rather than conventional.\nWords were generally spelled according to how they sounded to the person writing a text, rather than according to a formalised system that might not accurately represent the way the writer's dialect was pronounced, as Modern English is today.\nThe Middle English speech of the city of [London](https://bliptext.com/articles/london) in the late 14th century (essentially, the speech of [Geoffrey Chaucer](https://bliptext.com/articles/geoffrey-chaucer)) is used as the standard Middle English dialect in teaching and when specifying \"the\" grammar or phonology of Middle English.\nIt is this form that is described below, unless otherwise indicated.\nIn the rest of the article, abbreviations are used as follows:\n\n# Sound inventory\nThe [surface sounds](https://bliptext.com/articles/phone-phonetics) of Chaucer's Middle English (whether [allophones](https://bliptext.com/articles/allophones) or [phonemes](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonemes)) are shown in the tables below.\nPhonemes in **bold** were added across Middle English; those in italics were removed during the period.\n\n## Consonants\n1. The exact nature of Middle English r is unknown.\nThis article uses ⟨r⟩ indiscriminately.\n\n## Consonant allophones\nThe sounds marked in parentheses in the table above are allophones:\n\n### Voiced fricatives\nIn Old English,, , were allophones of , , , respectively, occurring between [vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel) or [voiced consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiced-consonant).\nThat led to many alternations: hūs ('house') vs. hūses ('of a house') ; wīf ('woman') vs. wīfes ('of a woman').\nIn Middle English, voiced allophones become phonemes and have become solidly established in Modern English as separate phonemes by several sources:\nThe status of the sources in Chaucer's Middle English is as follows:\nThe strongest distinction was between and because of the large number of borrowings from [Old French](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-french).\nIt is also the only distinction that is consistently indicated in spelling, as ⟨f⟩ and ⟨v⟩ respectively.\nsometimes appears as ⟨z⟩, especially in borrowings from Greek and sometimes as ⟨s⟩.\nBoth and are spelled ⟨th⟩.\n\n## Vowels\n1 The Old English sequences, produced late Middle English and had apparently passed through early Middle English : OE grōwan ('grow') → LME.\nHowever, early Middle English that was produced by [Middle English breaking](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-english-breaking) became late Middle English : OE tōh (tough') → EME → LME.\nApparently, early became before the occurrence of Middle English breaking, which generated new occurrences of, which later became.\n**Monophthongs**\nMiddle English had a distinction between [close-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/close-mid-vowel) and [open-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-mid-vowel) [long vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel-length) but no corresponding distinction in short vowels.\nThe behaviour of [open syllable lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable-lengthening) seems to indicate that the short vowels were open-mid in quality, but according to Lass, they were close-mid.\n(There is some direct documentary evidence: in early texts, open-mid was spelled ⟨ea⟩, but both and were spelled ⟨eo⟩.) Later, the short vowels were in fact lowered to become open-mid vowels, as is shown by their values in Modern English.\nThe [front rounded vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/front-rounded-vowel) existed in the southwest dialects of Middle English, which developed from the standard [Late West Saxon dialect](https://bliptext.com/articles/west-saxon-dialect) of [Old English](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-english), but not in the standard Middle English dialect of London.\nThe close vowels and are direct descendants of the corresponding Old English vowels and were indicated as ⟨u⟩.\n(In the standard dialect of Middle English, the sounds became and ; in [Kentish](https://bliptext.com/articles/kentish-dialect), they became and .) may have existed in learned speech in loanwords from Old French, also spelled ⟨u⟩, but, as it merged with, becoming in Modern English, rather than , it can be assumed that was the vernacular pronunciation that was used in French-derived words.\nThe mid-front rounded vowels likewise had existed in the southwest dialects but not in the standard Middle English dialect of London and were indicated as ⟨o⟩.\nSometime in the 13th century, they became unrounded and merged with the normal front mid vowels.\nThey derived from the [Old English](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-english) diphthongs and.\nThere is no direct evidence that there was ever a distinction between open-mid and close-mid, but it can be assumed because of the corresponding distinction in the unrounded mid front vowels.\nwould have derived directly from [Old English](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-english), and derived from the open syllable lengthening of short , from the [Old English](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-english) short diphthong.\nThe quality of the short open vowel is unclear.\nIn early Middle English, it was presumably central since it represented the coalescence of the Old English vowels and.\nDuring [Middle English breaking](https://bliptext.com/articles/middle-english-breaking), it could not have been a front vowel since rather than was introduced after it.\nDuring Early Modern English, it was fronted in most environments to in southern England, and it and even closer values are found in the contemporary speech of southern England, North America and the Southern Hemisphere.\nIt remains in much of Northern England, Scotland and the Caribbean.\nMeanwhile, the long open vowel, which developed later because of open syllable lengthening, was.\nIt was gradually fronted, to successively, and , in the 16th and the 17th centuries.\n\n### Diphthongs\nAll of the above diphthongs came about during the Middle English.\nOld English had a number of diphthongs, but all of them had been reduced to monophthongs in the transition to Middle English.\nDiphthongs in Middle English came about by various processes and at various time periods and tended to change their quality over time.\nThe changes above occurred mostly between early and late Middle English.\nEarly Middle English had a distinction between [open-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-mid-vowel) and [close-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/close-mid-vowel) diphthongs, and all of the [close-mid](https://bliptext.com/articles/close-mid-vowel) diphthongs had been eliminated by late Middle English.\nThe following processes produced the above diphthongs:\n\n# Phonological processes\nThe following sections describe the major phonological processes occurring between written Late West Saxon, the standard written form of Old English, and the end of Middle English, which is conventionally dated to around 1500 AD.\n\n## Homorganic lengthening\nIn late Old English, vowels were lengthened before certain clusters:, , , ,.\nLater, the vowels in many of those words were shortened again, which gives the appearance that no lengthening happened, but evidence from the [Ormulum](https://bliptext.com/articles/ormulum) indicates otherwise.\nFor details see [Phonological history of Old English: Vowel lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonological-history-of-old-english).\n\n## Stressed vowel changes\n[Late West Saxon](https://bliptext.com/articles/west-saxon-dialect), the standard written form of Old English, included matched pairs of short and long vowels, including seven pairs of pure vowels (the monophthongs ) and two pairs of height-harmonic diphthongs: and.\nTwo additional pairs of diphthongs, and, existed in earlier Old English but had been reduced to and , respectively, by late Old English.\nIn the transition to Middle English, the system underwent major changes by eliminating the diphthongs and leaving only one pair of low vowels but with a vowel distinction appearing in the long mid vowels:\nThat left an asymmetric system consisting of five short vowels and six long vowels, with additional front rounded vowels in the southwest.\nSome symmetry was restored by [open syllable lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable-lengthening), which restored a long low vowel.\n\n## Reduction and loss of unstressed vowels\nUnstressed vowels were gradually confused in late Old English although spelling lagged behind because a standardized spelling system existed.\nBy Early Middle English, all unstressed vowels were written ⟨e⟩, which probably represented.\nAlso, in late Old English, final unstressed became ; during the Middle English period, this final was dropped when it was part of an inflectional syllable but remained when part of the root like seven or in derivational endings like written). Around Chaucer's time, final was dropped. Inflectional evidence suggests that occurred first when the following word began with a vowel. A century or so later, unstressed also dropped in the plural genitive ending -es (spelled -s in Modern English) and the past ending -ed.\nThe changes steadily effaced most inflectional endings:\nIn the last two examples, the stressed vowel was affected by [open-syllable lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable-lengthening).\n\n## Vocalization of and development of new diphthongs\nThe sound, which had been a post-vocalic allophone of , became vocalized to.\nThis occurred around the year 1200.\nA new set of diphthongs developed from combinations of vowel+ (either from or from pre-existing ) or vowel+ (from pre-existing ) and also from French loanwords: see [Diphthongs](https://bliptext.com/articles/) above.\n\n## Breaking\nDuring the 12th or the 13th century, was inserted between a front vowel and a following (pronounced in this context), and a vowel was inserted between a back vowel and a following (pronounced in this context).\nA short was treated as a back vowel in the process; the long equivalent did not occur in the relevant context.\nSee [H-loss](https://bliptext.com/articles/) below.\n\n## Open-syllable lengthening\nAround the 13th century, [short vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/short-vowels) were [lengthened in an open syllable](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable-lengthening) (when they followed by a single consonant that in turn was followed by another vowel).\nIn addition, non-low vowels were lowered: →, → , → , →.\nThat accounts, for example, for the vowel difference between staff and the alternative plural staves (Middle English staf vs. stāves, with open-syllable lengthening in the latter word).\nThe process was restricted in the following ways:\nThe effects of open-syllable lengthening and [trisyllabic laxing](https://bliptext.com/articles/trisyllabic-laxing) often led to differences in the stem vowel between singular and plural/genitive.\nGenerally, such differences were regularized by analogy in one direction or another but not in a consistent way:\n\n## Trisyllabic laxing\nIn late Old English, vowels were shortened before clusters of two consonants when two or more syllables followed.\nLater in Middle English, the process was expanded, and applied to all vowels when two or more syllables followed.\nThis led to the Modern English variations between divine vs. divinity, school vs. scholarly, grateful vs. gratitude, etc.\nIn some cases, later changes have led to apparently anomalous results, e.g. south vs. southern with only two syllables (but while trisyllabic laxing applied).\nThe change is still fairly productive in Modern English.\n\n## Pre-cluster shortening\nIn late Old English, vowels were shortened before clusters of three consonants:\nAs shown by ghastly, this shortening occurred before the raising of OE to EME, which occurred in the transition to Middle English.\nLater in Middle English, vowels were shortened before clusters of two consonants, except before and in some cases where [homorganic lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/) applied.\nExamples:\n\n## Reduction of double consonants\nDouble ([geminated](https://bliptext.com/articles/gemination)) consonants were reduced to single ones.\nThis took place after open syllable lengthening; the syllable before a geminate was a closed syllable and so vowels were not lengthened before (originally) doubled consonants.\nThe loss of gemination may have been stimulated by its small [functional load](https://bliptext.com/articles/functional-load) since few [minimal pairs](https://bliptext.com/articles/minimal-pairs) of words existed that were distinguished solely by that feature.\n\n## H-loss\nThe phoneme, when it occurred in the [syllable coda](https://bliptext.com/articles/syllable-coda), is believed to have had two allophones: the [voiceless palatal fricative](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiceless-palatal-fricative) , occurring after [front vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/front-vowel), and the [voiceless velar fricative](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiceless-velar-fricative) , occurring after [back vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/back-vowel).\nThe usual spelling in both cases was ⟨gh⟩, which is retained today in words like night and taught.\nThose sounds were lost during later Middle English and Early Modern English.\nThe timing of the process depended on the dialect; the fricatives were still pronounced in some educated speech in the 16th century, but they had disappeared by the late 17th.\nLoss of the fricatives was accompanied by some [compensatory lengthening](https://bliptext.com/articles/compensatory-lengthening) or [diphthongization](https://bliptext.com/articles/diphthongization) of preceding vowels.\nIn some cases, the velar fricative developed into ; as such, the preceding vowel was shortened, and the of a diphthong was absorbed.\nSome developments are illustrated below:\nThe variable outcome, along with other variable changes and the ambiguity of the Middle English spelling ⟨ou⟩ (either or in Early Middle English, accounts for the numerous pronunciations of Modern English words in -ough- (e.g. though, through, bough, rough, trough, thought, with -ough- pronounced respectively).\nspelled -gh- is realized as even today in some traditional dialects of [northern England](https://bliptext.com/articles/northern-england) and more famously in [Scots](https://bliptext.com/articles/scots-language).\nSome accents in [northern England](https://bliptext.com/articles/northern-england) lack the and instead exhibit special vowel developments in some such words: night as (sounds like neat) and in the dialectal words owt and nowt (from aught and naught, pronounced like out and nout, meaning 'anything' and 'nothing').\nThe modern phoneme most commonly appears today in the typically-Scottish word [loch](https://bliptext.com/articles/loch) and in names such as [Buchan](https://bliptext.com/articles/buchan).\nThere, the is usual in Scotland although the alternative is becoming more common among some younger speakers.\nThe same is true in Wales, in names such as [Loughor](https://bliptext.com/articles/loughor).\nEnglish-speakers from elsewhere may replace the in such cases with, but some use in imitation of the local pronunciations as they may in certain foreign words such as [Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/bach), [Kharkiv](https://bliptext.com/articles/kharkiv), [Sakhalin](https://bliptext.com/articles/sakhalin) and [chutzpah](https://bliptext.com/articles/chutzpah).\n\n## Great Vowel Shift\nThe [Great Vowel Shift](https://bliptext.com/articles/great-vowel-shift) was a fundamental change in late Middle English (post-Chaucer) and [Early Modern English](https://bliptext.com/articles/early-modern-english) that affected the pronunciation of all of the long vowels.\nThe high vowels and were [diphthongized](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel-breaking), ultimately producing the modern diphthongs and, and all other vowels were raised.\n\n## Diphthong loss\nThis is not normally considered a part of the Great Vowel Shift, but during the same time period, most pre-existing Middle English diphthongs were [monophthongized](https://bliptext.com/articles/monophthongization):\nThe remaining diphthongs developed as follows:\n\n# Vowel equivalents from Old English to Modern English\nFor a detailed description of the changes between Old English and Middle and Modern English, see the article on the [phonological history of English](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonological-history-of-english).\nA summary of the main vowel changes is presented below.\nThe spelling of Modern English largely reflects Middle English pronunciation.\n\n## Monophthongs\nThis table presents the general developments.\nMany exceptional outcomes occurred in particular environments.\nFor example, vowels were often lengthened in late Old English before, , , and vowels changed in [complex ways](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonological-history-of-english-vowels) before throughout the history of English.\nVowels were diphthongized in Middle English before, and new diphthongs arose in Middle English by the combination of vowels with Old English , → , and.\nFor more information, see the section below.\nThe only conditional development considered in detail below is Middle English open-syllable lengthening.\nIn the column on modern spelling, CV means a sequence of a single consonant followed by a vowel.\nThe Modern English vowel that is usually spelled ([Received Pronunciation](https://bliptext.com/articles/received-pronunciation):, [General American](https://bliptext.com/articles/general-american): ) does not appear in the above chart.\nIts main source is late Middle English < early and, which come from various sources: Old English and (claw < clawu, law < lagu); diphthongization before (sought < sōhte, taught < tāhte, daughter < dohtor); borrowings from [Latin](https://bliptext.com/articles/latin-language) and French (fawn < [Old French](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-french) faune, Paul < [Latin](https://bliptext.com/articles/latin-language) Paulus).\nOther sources are Early Modern English lengthening of before (salt, all); occasional shortening and later relengthening of Middle English (broad < < brād); and in [American English](https://bliptext.com/articles/american-english), lengthening of short o before [unvoiced fricatives](https://bliptext.com/articles/unvoiced-fricative) and [voiced velars](https://bliptext.com/articles/voiced-velar) (dog, long, off, cross, moth, all with in American dialects that still maintain the difference between and ).\nAs mentioned above, Modern English is derived from the Middle English of London, which is derived largely from Anglian Old English, with some admixture of West Saxon and Kentish.\nOne of the most noticeable differences among the dialects is the handling of original Old English.\nBy the time of the written Old English documents, the Old English of Kent had already unrounded to, and the late Old English of Anglia unrounded to.\nIn the West Saxon area, remained as such well into Middle English times and was written in Middle English documents from the area.\nSome words with the sound were borrowed into London Middle English, where the unfamiliar was substituted with :\nSome apparent instances of modern for Old English are actually regular developments, particularly if the is a development of earlier (West Saxon) from i-mutation of, as the normal i-mutation of in Anglian is ; for example, stern < styrne < *starnijaz, steel < stȳle < *stahliją (cf. [Old Saxon](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-saxon) stehli).\nAlso, some apparent instances of modern for Old English may actually be from the influence of a related form with unmutated : sundry < syndriġ, influenced by sundor \"apart, differently\" (compare to sunder and asunder).\n\n## Diphthongs\n\n# Sources","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}

History