A History of English Language

The renaissance, 1500-1650 223
Such a diagram must be taken as only a very rough indication of what happened,
especially in the breaking of i and u into the diphthongs ai and au. Nor must the changes
indicated by the arrows be thought of as taking place successively, but rather as all part of
a general movement with slight differences in the speed with which the results were
accomplished (or the date at which evidence for them can be found). 39 The effects of the
shift can be seen in the following comparison of Chaucer’s and Shakespeare’s
pronunciation:
M.E. Chaucer Shakespeare
ī [fi:f] five [faIv] 40
[me:də] meed [mi:d]
[klε:nə] clean [kle:n] (now [kli:n])
ā [na:mə] name [ne:m]
goat
[go:t]
[ro:tə] root [ru:t]
ū [du:n] down [daUn] 40
From this it is apparent that most of the long vowels had acquired at least by the sixteenth
century (and probably earlier) approximately their present pronunciation. The most
important development that has taken place since is the further raising of ME to ī.
Whereas in Shakespeare clean was pronounced like our lane, it now rhymes with lean. 41
The change occurred at the end of the seventeenth century and had become general by the
middle of the eighteenth. 42 Such other changes as have occurred are slight and must be
sought by the interested reader in the books devoted especially to the history of English
sounds. 43
39
Furthermore, it is important to be aware that the diagram, although a useful summary and
mnemonic, is an oversimplification and idealization in hindsight of a process that developed at
different rates in the different dialects. Empirical and ontological problems in this idealization are
discussed with evidence from current dialectal change by Robert Stockwell and Donka Minkova,
“Explanations of Sound Change: Contradictions between Dialect Data and Theories of Chain
Shifting,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 30 (1999), 83–102.
40
The pronunciations [aI] and may not have been fully attained in Shakespeare’s day, but
they were apparently well on the way. Cf. Wyld, History of Modern Colloquial English, pp. 223 ff.,
230 ff.
41
A pronunciation approximating that of today was apparently in use among some speakers but was
considered substandard.
42
There are three exceptions: break, great, steak. The pronunciation [i] was apparently considered
vulgar at first, later alternated with [e], and finally became the accepted form in most words. See
Wyld, Short History of English, p. 173.
43
For a description of the vowel shift within the theory of generative phonology, see Noam
Chomsky and Morris Halle, The Sound Pattern of English (New York, 1968).