 Hello, welcome back to our series of e-lectures about the history of English. In the following, we will discuss the sound inventory of early modern English, indicating the type of sound changes that led from Middle English to early modern English and beyond, illustrating the pronunciation of early modern English using audio examples in each case. We will proceed as follows. First of all, we will look at the transition from Middle English to early modern English, pointing out the major sound changes. Then we will list the early modern English phonemes in particular and will eventually exemplify the sounds of early modern English by means of a passage from William Shakespeare. Let us first of all look at the early modern English period itself. It began around 1500 and ended around 1700. So let's write these two dates down here. 1500 to 1700. It's beginning coincides with the ascendancy of Henry VIII to the throne in 1509. Further sociocultural milestones that define the early modern English period are the introduction of the printing press to England in 1476 by William Caxton. This helped to fix the literary language of England in the 16th century. Another milestone is the gradual break from Rome by Henry VIII, which led to a higher degree of independence of the English language from other languages. And the end of the early modern English period coincides with the age of exploration and colonization and the beginning of the scientific age at around 1700. And then there is of course most influentially the works of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare published his works in the late 16th and the early 17th century. For this reason and for the degree of influence he exerted on the English language, early modern English is often alternatively referred to as Shakespearean English. The transition from middle English to early modern English was marked by a major change in the pronunciation of the vowels from about 1350 to 1550 and beyond eventually to 1700. This change termed the great vowel shift consisted of a shift in the articulation of almost all vowels, and most distinctively however the long monophones. The consonantal system remained almost unchanged. Well this is what happened. Five of the seven middle English monophones were raised and two of them were diphthongized. Well this simplified animation from the virtual linguistics compass illustrates the changes that took place. So let's start in 1350 and you see this is a typical change shift that raised the five of the seven monophones and diphthongized two of them, the ones in the center. Apart from the great vowel shift, early modern English saw no sweeping systematic changes in the middle English vowels. Nevertheless all short vowels were somehow involved in some changes. The following major changes took place in the system of monophones. Now here's the first one, the loss of schwa in final unstressed positions. So typical examples are words such as mark. For example, marker became mark or smother became smother and later smooth. Here's another change. The change or the fronting of back R to front A before voiceless fricatives. For example in words such as staff which became staff and class which became class. This reminds us of American English doesn't it? The third change I want to be discussed is the centering of a mid high vowel to schwa. So this affected examples such as run which became run and mud which became mud. A fourth monophongo change can be found before nasals where the mid low front vowel change to a mid high front vowel. So here we have examples such as wing and single where the vowel was lower before this change. And the final monophongo change I want to discuss is the raising of R to O in words such as bolt or bold or cold. So these are some central monophongo changes that led from middle English to early modern English. Further changes that mark this transition affected the system of diphthong. So let's look at these in detail. So the diphthong U changed to A O so the onset was lowered slightly. And an example would be words such as pure which became pure or words such as pure became pure. A second change is a type of monophongization where the diphthong A O changed to A O. So typical examples are words such as cause which became cause. Or another example would be hawk which became hawk. The next change is another monophongization process where the diphthong O as in no was monophongized to no or blow became blow. Well at last but not least we have the change of A to A. Again a monophongization which affected words such as die which became day or rise which became raise. So much for the vocali changes that mark the transition from middle English to early modern English. The changes in the consonantal system during the early modern English period were relatively small. There were only slight readjustments in the system of consonants. The following major changes took place. And again let's look at them in detail. So here's the first one where we had two new phonemes in words such as sing for example sing or pleasure. So here are two new phonemes which are pronounced in the present day English way. Another change was the loss of the two alophones of the glottal fricatives. The alophones hier and her. So you could argue the last remaining typical German alophones that we still have in German. So words such as sicht became sit or taucht became eventually caught. Another loss affected the alveolar lateral where now words such as former half became half. Or to take another example tauch became tauch and later on tauch. Then we could observe a loss of ke and ge before final nasal. So for example in typical comparatives or words such as long which were formally pronounced long. And changes that occurred in the 18th century were the remaining two. First of all the labiovela approximate was dropped before an alveolar approximate before r. So words such as wrong became wrong or wrinkle became wrinkle. Well and the last change affected the degree of roticity which became lower and lower as English developed towards present day English. So in the 18th century the post-vocalic r was lost in words such as march became march or quarter became quarter. So this is an overview of the main changes that mark the transition from Middle English to Early Modern English. Let's now look at the Early Modern English phonemes in detail. Early Modern English had 11 monophongs, 3 diphthongs and 24 consonants. Well here they are. Let's start with the monophongs. During the Early Modern English period and before the vowel system of English changed considerably. Whereas the short vowels experienced a number of fine adjustments the major activity concerned the long vowels. As a result of these changes length was no longer a distinctive feature of the English vowels. Here are the 5 long monophongs. So we have 5 monophongs. Green, a mid high long vowel, A as in mid. Air, mid low as in mech. Then a mid high back vowel, O as in goat. And finally a high back vowel, O as in food. Let's continue with the system of the short monophongs. Now here are the 5 short monophongs and one central monophong. So again let's look at them in detail. We have a mid high front vowel E as in kiss. A mid vowel, mid front vowel E as in bed. A low front vowel E as in that. A low back vowel, O as in hop. A mid high back vowel, A mid high back vowel, O as in fall. And finally the central vowel which occurred in unstressed position. So the whole monophongal system was no longer a congruent pattern. So further sound changes were likely to occur after the transitional state of early modern English. Early modern English only had 3 diphthongs. They were all up gliding, or if you wish closing, that is their final element was a high vowel. Centering diphthongs with schwa as the final element did not occur in early modern English. The reason is quite simple. Words such as here, there, sure did not exhibit a centering diphthong since R was always pronounced during this period, coming out as here, there, or sure. So here are the diphthongs of early modern English. A as in tate. O as in house. And I as in joy. Okay, so this is the diphthongal system. The continental system of early modern English was almost that of middle English. The only system why change between the consonants of middle English and early modern English is the loss of the alophonic variants of the glottal fricative. So there are no longer any particular alophones of this phoneme. And the addition of G, that is a post-alveolar fricative to the system. Most spelling patterns were formulated in their essential details during late middle English and early early modern English. By the end of the 17th century, the principle of a fixed spelling for every word was firmly established for printed works and over the course of the following century, personal spelling followed suit. So by the end of the 17th century, modern patterns of spelling and punctuation had been established. Literature flourished in England during the Renaissance. Several names such as Edmund Spencer, Thomas Moore or Christopher Marlowe are connected with that period. But no one had such a great impact on both literature and language as William Shakespeare, who is depicted over here, who lived from 1564 until 1616. He is a unique figure of world literature and his plays and poetry are full of rich language. He invented numerous new words and is thus so important for the English language. In his works, he deals with every facet of human existence. So let's finally illustrate the sounds of early modern English using an example from Shakespeare. Well, I chose one of his famous sonnets, sonnet number 18. Okay, here we are. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, though earth more lovely and more temperate? Roof winds do shake the darling buds of may, and summer's lace has all too short a date. Sumptime to hut the eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimmed, and every fair from fair sometime declines, by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed. But the eternal summer shall not fade, nor those possession of that fair though host, nor shall death brag though wondrous in his shed, when in eternal lanes to tame thou grossed. So long as men can breathe or raise can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Well, this may suffice as an impression of what early modern English could have sounded like. Let us summarize. During the early modern English period, the sound system of early modern English had reached a state very similar to that of present day English. Whereas the continental system, apart from some alophonic changes, remained relatively stable, the system of vowels had changed dramatically due to the effects of the great vowel shift. So at the end of the early modern English period, the vowel system was almost like it is today. However, the orthography did not follow this change. Thus we have a very peculiar situation today. A sound system that is completely different from that of earlier periods such as Old or Middle English, and an orthographical system that does not reflect the new pronunciation. Rather, it represents the pronunciation of English of several centuries ago. Thank you for listening.