 The transition from Middle English to Early Modern English was marked by a major change in the pronunciation of vowels from about 1350 to 1700. This change, termed the Great Vowel Shift, consisted of a shift in the articulation of vowels with respect to the positions assumed by the tongue and the lips. This lecture discusses the stages of the Great Vowel Shift and looks at some possible reasons for this change. In particular, we will look at the periods during which the Great Vowel Shift took place. We will discuss the central stages of the Great Vowel Shift, including the irregularities that this sound shift involved and will finally speculate about some possible reasons for this change. Let us look at the main periods during which this sound shift took place first. The beginning of the Middle English period coincides with the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy after the battle known as William the Conqueror, defeated the English under King Harold II. After the conquest, England's social and political structures underwent drastic changes, such as an almost complete replacement of the English aristocracy by a Norman aristocracy. Over and above the political and social aspects, the Norman conquest had an enormous impact on the English language. The early modern English period, which coincides with the ascendancy of Henry VIII to the throne in 1509, is the first during which English speakers take a serious look at their language. The end of the early modern English period is marked by the completion of the Great Vowel Shift and the beginning of the scientific age at around 1700. The term Great Vowel Shift was coined by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen. It affected the pronunciation of almost all vowels most distinctively, however, the long monophongs. This shift began in the 14th century and took until the 18th century to fully develop. So let us first of all look at the starting point, the system of middle English long monophongs. Here they are. There were seven monophongs. Let's illustrate them with one example in each case. There was a high front vowel E as in Tide, a mid-high front vowel E as in Green, a mid-low front vowel as in Met, a low central vowel as in Marken, a mid-low back vowel or as in Gott, a mid-high back vowel O as in Ford, and a high back vowel O as in Huss. Now this was the starting point. The Great Vowel Shift can be characterized as a kind of change shift. A change shift is a type of phonetic change where several phonemes change along a scale. The Great Vowel Shift was a shift with a general drift upwards. It can be seen as a multi-stage process where the stages here expressed by numbers overlap and they do not occur in all dialects simultaneously. It was no uniform process but a series of local developments over time with the result that vowels were either raised or became diphthongs. Whether the Great Vowel Shift is a drag chain or a push chain is not clear. Let us now look at the individual stages of this change shift. Stage 1 probably set the entire sound shift in motion. It involved two individual changes. The raising and diphthongization of E to A and the raising and diphthongization of O to O. So the two high vowels as in Tide and Huss became diphthongs as in Tide and Huss. So this was a new system. In the works by John Hart, you could call him one of the early phoneticians of the English language, this stage of the Great Vowel Shift was well documented. Words like Advertised, He or Exorcise were pronounced with a high front vowel, whereas words such as A, Lake, Rate or Desire involved the diphthong A. Furthermore, in words spelt with a Y mostly as a suffix, Hart drew a similar distinction. Adverbs ending on L, Y involved E, while words such as May, Way or Bay were pronounced with this diphthong A. Middle English words that involved Long O were more consistently changed into words with early modern English diphthongle O. Now here is the second stage. When E and O the two high vowels had become diphthongs, their high vowel positions became free. Thus the mid high vowels E and O as in Green or Ford were raised to E and O becoming Green and Food and filled that gap. So this was the new situation after stage 2. Consequently, Middle English words like Meet, Speak and Say now involved E coming out as Meet, Speak and See in early modern English. Similarly, Middle English Lose and Mone were realized with Long O in early modern English coming out as Loose and Moon. It is not clear though whether the raising of E and O occurred after stage 1 or parallel to it. As a consequence there is also disagreement about the kind of chain shift. Is it a drag chain where stage 1 occurred first and then stage 2 was dragged to follow? Or is it a push chain where stage 2 and 1 may have happened simultaneously? Here is the third stage. Now stage 3 classifies the fronting of Middle English central vowel R as in Marken to mid low air via a transitional phase with short A, the Ash. So this is what happens. Marken became first Macen and eventually it became Mac and this was the new system. According to John Hart's suggestions concerning the pronunciation of English in the 16th century, this stage was presumably not as striking as the other stages. Many long R words kept Long R for a relatively long time. For example, the word Annie, present-day English Annie. Since R was transformed to air in stage 3, Middle English words which involve mid-low air, like here we have the example mate or take say, were now pushed to mate and say, leading to this new result. And at the same time, in the back region, words pronounced with mid-low or, like got, were raised to got, probably as an effect of pattern congruity. So this was the new situation after stage 4. And this is what followed at stage 5. Now at stage 4, air was raised to A. As a consequence, Middle English A occupied the position of the high front vowel E, whose position had become available due to the diphthongization of E at stage 1. Sometimes this stage is referred to as the meet-meet merger, because prior to this stage of the great vowel shift, meet and meet had distinct qualities. Well, this merger created a large set of homophones. Here are just some of them, P, C or T. And then we have stage 6. Now this step almost seems like a repetition of stage 4. However, the mid-vowel air was raised from R in stage 3. So this was the first part. In other words, this is the new air after the great vowel shift. So Marken became Mac and eventually Mac. But over time, this new vowel was even raised further to E. So Mac became Meek. In many varieties of present-day English, for example in RP, it was even diphthongized to A. So Meek became Meek. Thus we represent this particular effect in grey at stage 7. Now this superficially final stage did not mark the end of the development of the English vowels. In RP, the two new diphthongs A and O changed even further. So Tade and Hose became Tide and House. So we can assume the following end product after the completion of the great vowel shift. However, not all varieties of present-day English underwent this change in the same way. There are varieties where the lowering of the diphthongal nuclear stopped in the centre. For example, in Canadian English or the northern varieties of British English, in Canadian English, this effect is known as Canadian raising. Where you say something like Hose and Lace instead of House and Lice. On the other hand, there are varieties of present-day English where the diphthongs were re-monophthongized. The effect in the southern states of North America of American English is referred to as glide deletion of eye. And the effect is that they don't say nice white rice, but something like nas white rice. In many varieties of present-day English, some monophthongs were diphthongized later. This is what happened to the O in present-day English. Now in British English, the goat, goat, goat change occurred. So where the original monophthong became clearly diphthongized as an up-gliding diphthong. And in American English, this process was not as radical as in British English. So here the result was still something like goat instead of goat British English. The great vowel shift did not influence all dialects of English, as I already said, respectively not all parts of England. In the northern British English varieties, for example the diphthongs I and I were not lower that much. You still say something like me who's in the north of England. Moreover, the great vowel shift did not affect all words of a particular vowel class. In fact, two vowel classes seem to be relatively inconsistent. One of them is the so-called EA class. According to the stages of the shift, the vowel air should have first been raised to E and later to E. This happened especially with words spelled with EA. For example, raisin became raisin and later raisin. But many EA words did not follow this change. Here are some examples. Now in the first group, swear, bear and wear, we have a vowel before R. This position had always been exceptional. Between Old English and Middle English, short A was lengthened to air but never before R. The second group does not seem to follow a particular pattern. So we have something like great break and stake but streak and leak. Yet in two of our examples, the vowel appears after a consonant plus R cluster. So that might be the reason. And the third group where we have examples such as dead head, red thread and wealth. Well, this group exhibits words with the vowel before coronal consonants whose vowel was shortened to A. Yet this pattern is not regular either. Take the base form of the verb read and compare that with red in the past tense form. The second class which is a little bit problematic is the 00 class. Now the 00 class involves words such as loop, soon and moon. However, a number of words spelled with 00 fail to alter to O but were realized with a short O, particularly before K and D as in book, foot and good. Furthermore, in certain cases the 00 and spelling patterns such as OU developed to A like in blood and country. Further exceptions concern words such as broad whose vowel was not affected by the great vowel shift at all. It is still pronounced as in the Middle English variant broad. Now the reasons for the great vowel shift have not been completely clarified. Some theories say that the mass immigration to South England after the pandemic black death and the resulting social mobility could be a reason. Afterwards the numerous dialects with their different vowel sounds and the emerging middle class in London altered the speech into a new standard pronunciation which finally disseminated to other regions. This rapid spreading and mixing of dialects was even accelerated by the development of the printing press in the 15th century which enabled a higher amount of education and literacy in the English society. Another reason could be language contact. When speakers of different languages interact closely it is typical for their languages to influence each other. The medieval aristocracy that is the ruling class of England had spoken French or Latin but changed to English in the 15th century. On the one hand their prestige accent was presumably influenced by the French language and caused some new pronunciations. The shift affected words of both native ancestry and borrowings from French and Latin. But on the other hand there were several conflicts between England and France at this time. England could have wanted to isolate itself more from France and therefore confirm its own language. Furthermore King Henry VIII wanted to separate England from Rome and thus triggered growing patriotism and thus language independence. Well, in summary we can say that the great vowel shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1700 and even beyond. It affected the middle English long vowels and consisted of several stages which in some cases took place simultaneously and together can be defined as a change shift. Even though the reasons for the great vowel shift are not entirely clear, one consequence can be seen today. Since the English orthography did by and large not change during the great vowel shift we can now explain the relatively great discrepancy between present-day English pronunciation and spelling. Words such as tide, moon or make to name a few reflect their pronunciation prior to the great vowel shift but not their present-day English phonetic value. Knowing the principles of the great vowel shift however we can explain this discrepancy and analyze modern English orthography in a much more principled way. I hope that my e-lecture was of some help to you in this respect.