Jump to content

File talk:Great Vowel Shift.svg

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This diagram is biased towards British English. But it's still a great diagram. John Riemann Soong (talk) 11:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking the same thing. Since English is pluricentric, I think it might help to clarify that the "modern" values are those found in British English.--Witan (talk) 03:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requests

[edit]

I have some requests that I would like added to this diagram:

  • Where does the vowel in book, took, etc, fit in. Is it the same as "put"?
  • Could we have the Middle English spelling of these words as well? I'm particularly interested to see which used the letter æ

Great diagram, though. Thanks.

-- TimNelson (talk) 07:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I needed a moment to check this: the long closed [o:] as in moon is actually branching into three different directions. If the vowel stays long it becomes a long [u:]. In some environments (an "environment" is given with consonants) the long [u:] looses its length. If it does so before 1600 it takes its further course on the last track together with "cut". You see this hapen with blood. If the [u:] looses its length after 1600 it is not affected by the [ʌ]:-development. It is just shortened to [u] as in book, took, look etc. --Olaf Simons (talk) 08:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
PS The diagram is given mostly without exceptions. One could, however, think of the more complex diagram. --Olaf Simons (talk) 08:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]