Yes you did read that correctly. I am not going to talk about any bowel shift, great, small or otherwise. Some things just need to stay private. Confession time, I actually wrote this article on Friday at the same time as I wrote "yesterday's" article. I do at times try to get ahead of myself and if I am thinking cerebrally I am not thinking - those of you who have followed my recent posts know my need for distraction.

The Great Vowel Shift (GVS) was a massive, systematic change in the pronunciation of English that happened between the 15th and 17th century, largely transformed the sound of English. This change was pretty much complete by about 1650. Most significantly all Middle English long vowels were either raised or became diphthongs; high vowels /iː/ and /uː/ became diphthongs, mid vowels /eː/ and /oː/ moved upward to fill the “vacated” high positions and lower long vowels (/aː/, /ɛː/, /ɔː/) were raised in turn. One of the consequences of this was an ongoing chain reaction that affected the whole way English was pronounced.

This move goes a long way towards explaining why Old English sounds so different (even German!) and more modern forms seem inconsistent in how they are pronounced in relation to their spelling. Nobody really knows why it happened although several theories abound. Some have put it down to a direct result of the devastation of the Black Death which led to large population movements into London and the mixing of a myriad of dialects. Moreover, archaic forms of English were under pressure from the ever encroaching influence of French which had been a steady influence since 1066 as Norman French mingled with Anglo-Saxon. In itself this probably also set off another chain reaction because as English replaced French as the language of administration and upward mobility, speakers may have altered pronunciation to sound more “refined,” creating a prestige‑driven chain shift. However, this latter argument holds little water as it took a full half millennium to take on any influence.

So, in the long run, and as I mentioned above, it explains why English spelling is so irregular: spelling was being standardised just as pronunciation was changing and as I hinted yesterday (Friday :D) it marks the boundary between Chaucer’s English and Shakespeare’s English — which was a major linguistic turning point. You may recall that I said that Shakespeare was already using an archaic form, but even so his English was influenced by the Great Vowel Shift.

As always stay safe and well my friends