Middle English

The changes that occurred to vowels in ME were as follows:

Quantitative:

Reduction – weakening and disappearance of unstressed vowels. As far as the stress was mainly on the root the vowels in prefixes and suffixes got weak and underwent reduction. In unstressed position only two vowels were left – [ə] and [i]. They had never been contrasted.

E.g. ME tale [‘ta:lə], body [‘bodi]

In NE sound [ə] (schwa) was dropped at the end of the words but the letter e was left in spelling to show the length of the preceding vowel.

Shortening – all long vowels became short before consonant clusters (NB!! except [ld, nd, mb] – before these clusters vowels remained long or if a vowel was short it became long)

Other Consonant Clusters
OE	ME
fīftiζ	fifty (fifty)
fēdde	fedde (fed)
wīsdom	wisdom (wisdom)

Lengthening (12^th – 13^th c.) – short vowels became long:

before clusters [ld, nd, mb];

in 2-syllable words, only to [e, o, a] in open stressed syllable

Clusters [ld, nd, mb]	2-syllable words
OE	ME	OE	ME
cild	chīld (child)	mete	mēte (meat)
findan	fīnden (find)	open	ōpen (open)
climban	clīmben (climb)	talu	tāle (tale)

Qualitative: The system of vowels in ME were no longer symmetrical as it was in OE

Short Vowels

[y] changed to [i] e.g. OE hyll – ME hill (hill);

[æ] changed to [a] e.g. OE wæs – ME was (was).

As a result:

i

e

a

o

u

Long Vowels

[ỹ] changed to [ī];

[ǽ] fell together with [έ];

[ā] changed to [ō] e.g. OE stān – ME sto[o:]ne (stone).

As a result:

	close	open
ī	ū	ē	ō	έ	ǿ

New Diphthongs

OE diphthongs turned into monophthongs:

OE Diphth.	ME Sounds	OE	ME
ĭě/īē à	i	līehtan	lighten (lighten)
ĕŏ/ēō à	e	heorte	herte (heart)
ĕă/ēā à	æ	ēast	eest (east)

New English

Great Vowel Shift – the change that happened in the 14^th – 16^th c. and affected all long monophthongs + diphthong [au]. As a result these vowels were:

diphthongized;

narrowed (became more closed);

both diphthongized and narrowed.

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[i:] à	[ai]	time [‘ti:mə]	time [teim]
[e:] à	[i:]	kepen [‘ke:pən]	keep [ki:p]
[a:] à	[ei]	maken [‘ma:kən]	make [meik]
[o:] à à	[ou] [u:]	stone [‘sto:nə] moon [mo:n]	stone [stoun] moon [mu:n]
[u:] à	[au]	mous [mu:s]	mouse [maus]
[au] à	[o:]	cause [‘kauzə]	cause [ko:z]

This shift was not followed by spelling changes, i.e. it was not reflected in written form. Thus the Great Vowel Shift explains many modern rules of reading.

Short Vowels

ME Sounds	NE Sounds	ME	NE
[a] à   à	[æ]   [o] after [w]!!	that [qat] man [man] was [was] water [‘watə]	that [ðæt] man [mæn] was [woz] water [‘wotə]
[u] à	[Λ]	hut [hut] comen [cumen]	hut [hΛt] come [cΛm]

There were exceptions though, e.g. put, pull, etc.

Vocalisation of [r]

It occurred in the 16^th – 17^th c. Sound [r] became vocalised (changed to [ə] (schwa)) when stood after vowels at the end of the word.

Consequences:

new diphthongs appeared: [εə], [iə], [uə];

the vowels before [r] were lengthened (e.g. arm [a:m], for [fo:], etc.);

triphthongs appeared: [aiə], [auə] (e.g. shower [‘∫auə], shire [‘∫aiə]).