The Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift (GVS) is the reason we may find Old and Middle English difficult to grasp. It is also a major factor in the perplexing idiosyncracies of Modern English spelling which make the language non-phonetic. The GVS took place over two to six centuries (historians differ on this) and was more or less complete by 1700.

It was a scattered process which occurred in stages with intermediate transitions, contributing to the variety of dialects around the country. It had the greatest effect in south-east England in the fifteenth century. One theory is that this was a time when the English aristocracy wanted to drop French and Latin and take on English as a show of independence. In doing so, they influenced the way it was spoken. However, the spellings stayed the same, as printing had already started.

A few examples of the vocal changes include:

• “c-ah-t” →cat
• “t-ee-da” →tide (final ‘e’ became silent)
• “m-eh-t” →meat
• “b-eh” →be
• “ann-y” →any
• “m-oo-d” →mode
• “b-oo-t” →boat
• “h-oo-s” →house

Linguists explain it as ‘raising’ the position of vowel sound production in the mouth. This video gives an idea of how pre-GVS pronunciation would have sounded:-

(Top image: Ian S at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)