Universidad Nacional

Chorotega´s Head Office

Campus Liberia

Bachelor in Teaching English

Diachrony of English Language

Research Paper

Professor: M.Ed. David Villalobos

Student: Marisol Milanés Matamoros
ID: 270454

II Semester, 2009
 The Great Vowel Shift and its Influence in English

Language

In this moment, the life, as we know it, is crossing a big change that has an

impact in the dairy activities of people around all over the world. Did you realize

that over a billion people in the world now speak English? According to a report

titled, "English Next" by language researcher David Graddol, "...two billion people

will be speaking or learning English within a decade."

"English is an important tool for operating on the world stage," says John

Whitehead, director of the British Council. The ability to speak and understand

English is mandatory in certain fields, professions, and occupations.

It is well known that English is one of the oldest languages around the

world, and there are a lot of different ways to say a word, it depends of the social

context where somebody could be.

As we already know,

English is originated from

several dialects. It is an

Anglo-Frisian language

brought to Britain in the 5th

Century AD by Germanic

Source: http://www.uni-
settlers from various parts
due.de/SHE/Germanic_Migration_to_Britain.
of northwest Germany. The original Old English language was subsequently

influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of

languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonized parts

of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the

11th century, who spoke Norman (an oil language closely related to French).

Source: http://www.englishlanguageguide.com/english/facts/history/

In addition, the history of the language can be traced back to the arrival of

three Germanic tribes to the British Isles during the 5 th Century AD. Angles, Saxons

and Jutes crossed the North Sea from what is the present day Denmark and

northern Germany. The inhabitants of Britain previously spoke a Celtic language.

This was quickly displaced. Most of the Celtic speakers were pushed into Wales,

Cornwall and Scotland. One group migrated to the Brittany Coast of France where

their descendants still speak the Celtic Language of Breton today. The Angles

were named from Engle, their land of origin. Their language was called Englisc

from which the word, English derives.

It is convenient to divide English into periods—Old English (or Anglo-Saxon;

to c.1150), Middle English (to c.1500), and Modern English.

Source: http://www.englishlanguageguide.com/english/facts/history/

The Old English period was an era where the pronunciation did not has too

many characteristic as we have now, in Old English, there were six simple vowels

a, æ, i, o, u and y. Vowel duration was significant in Old English because it made a

difference in the meanings of words. For example, Old English is means 'is' while
īs means 'ice'. However, in the Old English, the pronunciation of the vowels did not

have a good quality in their sounds. In the prehistoric Old English period,

long vowels were shortened.

Around the beginning of the middle ages, English had not too many changes

in pronunciation, but the incorporation of different words and grammar structures

made that with the time the creation of new sounds were added to the English

pronunciation and for that reason, the Great Vowel Shift came. This fact that

happened after the Norman Conquest guided by William the Conqueror, had the

greatest impact on the oral tradition of the English language.

The Great Vowel Shift was the main change in pronunciation that occurred in

the Middle English Period. It took place between 1450 and 1750. The principles of

the long vowels formed the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle

English and Modern English, and the Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical

events marking the separation of Middle and Modern English.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

In other words, the vowels were pronounced in a different place in the mouth

and there were the pronunciation of new sounds. “The Great Vowel Shift” implies

this modification in the pronunciation of vowels from a softer to a harder sound.

The major impact of the Great Vowel Shift is that English is not a language based

in phonetics so the duration of the vowels in written form ended to be important in

modern English literature. English, during the Medieval Era was closely correlated
with the vowel sound, therefore making the Great Vowel Shift a necessity; today

with the excess of silent letters, vowels have become less important.

Taken from: http://facweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/what.htm

Those steps show us in a clear way the new positions that the long vowels

took in the mouth. As we know, that fact did not occur overnight, people would

have different pronunciation of the same word. Most linguists agree that the Great

Vowel Shift did not occur all at once, which accounts for the creative spellings of

many English words.

First, it is the change that occurred with the letters “i” and “u.” Both of these

letters became diphthongs, which are a complex speech sound or glide that begins

with one vowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable,

such as the “oi” in boil. Then, there was the incorporation of the long “e” such as in

“green” by pronounced with a /iy/. The only other vowel formed in this section of
the tongue is the “ae”. Middle English /i:/ and /u:/ correspond to Modern English /ai/

and /au/

Here are some examples of words affected by the shift.

Source: http://www.uni-due.de/SHE/HE_Change_Phonological.htm

As we can see in that chart, just the long vowels and diphthongs are affected

by the Great Vowel Shift. The different pronunciation in the vowels took long time

to be adapted in the way that we know. The long /iy/, in “driven”, first was changed

for the diphthong /ei/ pronounced with the long /e/. A century later, the long /e/

became a diphthong using the short /e/ and there were tow centuries after that the

pronunciation as we know it could be established.

Finally, the pronunciation of English Language, as we already know it, has

passed over big changes through the history. We must understand that a language
is not a single language. Even though, it has the influences of many dialects

around and not only them, make the changes. Also, all the things over the history

make that a language can change. In this moment, people are creating new words

and new ways to express the same. And it is impossible that the evolution of the

languages stops because we are people that are looking for and findings new

objects.