00:00:00
Why doesn’t that rhyme with that?
00:00:02
And why doesn’t that rhyme with that?
00:00:04
English spelling is apparently chaos with the same
00:00:07
clusters of letters making different
sounds depending on where you look.
00:00:11
But there are reasons for all of it
00:00:14
and one single bizarre phenomenon
plays a bigger part than any other.
00:00:19
Let’s get to the bottom of it in another RobWords.
00:00:22
So why is English so messed up that we can spell
00:00:25
lots of different sounds
in lots of different ways?
00:00:29
Well if we’re going to look - of should that
be lewk - for the single biggest reason,
00:00:34
then we need look no further
than The Great Vowel Shift.
00:00:39
The Great Vowel Shift is the reason why “look”
00:00:42
doesn’t rhyme with “spook” and
“great” doesn’t rhyme with “beat”.
00:00:47
It’s to blame for a lot of things.
00:00:50
The term Great Vowel Shift was coined by a
Danish linguist called Otto Jespersen who
00:00:54
showed an enviable level of maturity by
not calling it the Great Vowel Movement
00:01:00
and it refers to a centuries-long
process that saw the pronunciation
00:01:03
of the so-called long vowels
in English change completely.
00:01:08
The GVS - as all the hippest
linguists call it - took ages
00:01:13
from as early as the 15th century to
arguably as late as the 18th century.
00:01:17
So that’s the end of the Middle English
period - the English of Chaucer - and
00:01:22
through the period of Early Modern
English, the English of Shakespeare.
00:01:27
As well as taking ages, it also
played out in several stages.
00:01:31
But nevertheless, the Great
Vowel Shift gets treated as
00:01:33
a single phenomenon - the great
vowel shift, rather than shifts -
00:01:38
because all of the changes can be
seen as part of a chain reaction,
00:01:42
with each vowel sound
changing in a predictable way.
00:01:46
Let me try and explain this with the
help of this handy diagram of a mouth.
00:01:52
It doesn’t look like a mouth at the moment,
00:01:54
but just let me add a few things
to help with the visualisation.
00:01:58
So this is the chart that linguists
00:02:00
use to describe where in the mouth the many
different vowel sounds we make are produced.
00:02:05
You can find it online with sounds and clicking
around on it definitely isn’t hilarious.
00:02:10
[Website sounds] Ooh, err, uh, ay, orr
00:02:13
Anyway let’s simplify all that and just plot on
00:02:15
the vowel sounds affected
by the Great Vowel Shift.
00:02:18
Now don’t stress about what
these phonetic symbols mean
00:02:21
like what the heck is that?
and what does that one mean?
00:02:25
It’s not that important. The reason I’m
showing you this is to show how uniformly
00:02:30
the vowel sounds in words change during the
Great Vowel Shift, because there’s a pattern.
00:02:36
Words that contain any of these vowels at the
start of the Great Vowel Shift end the Great Vowel
00:02:42
Shift with a vowel sound that is produced higher
up and sometimes further forward in the mouth.
00:02:49
So words that were pronounced with an
“ehh” start to be pronounced with an
00:02:52
“ayy”. Or words that were pronounced with
an “ohh” were pronounced with an “ooh”.
00:02:57
The only exceptions are the sounds that
were already at the top of the mouth,
00:03:01
which move towards the
centre and become diphthongs.
00:03:05
But again, ignore the phonetics jargon.
00:03:08
All you need to take away from this is that
there is a consistent direction of travel
00:03:13
that vowel sounds are moving in and that’s
why the Great Vowel Shift is seen as this
00:03:18
single phenomenon despite taking several
hundreds of years and happening in stages.
00:03:23
But let’s get to the meat of this and talk about
how specific words changed as a result of it all.
00:03:29
Well “meat” is actually a great example.
It enters the Great Vowel Shift with its
00:03:33
Middle English pronunciation mairt, part-way
through its pronunciation becomes more like
00:03:38
“mate” and by the end it’s pronounced
much more like we say it now: meat.
00:03:43
And by the way, we pronounced another
word like that, don’t we? Meet.
00:03:48
And it’s during one of the stages
of the Great Vowel Shift that the
00:03:52
pronunciations of these two
words unhelpfully converge.
00:03:56
So you see how spelling is getting
messed up here? Because at the same
00:03:59
time the pronunciations of see and sea
become the same. So do piece and peace.
00:04:04
And that’s because some words go through more
stages than others, leaving other words that
00:04:11
are spelt the same behind and converging
with words that are spelt differently.
00:04:16
EA words are the best example of this. Just think
00:04:18
about the different sounds those
two letters can make together.
00:04:22
They make one sound in beat,
but a different one in bear.
00:04:26
And another one in break. And another in bread.
00:04:30
And the reasons why these
EA sounds are different is
00:04:32
partially down to the sounds that come after them.
00:04:35
You can see this in the fact that break and steak
rhyme, because they both have the K after the EA.
00:04:41
That appears to have played a part in how their
pronunciation changed during the vowel shift.
00:04:46
The same goes for bear rhyming with wear
and tear, because they all share that rrr.
00:04:52
Grrr.
00:04:53
By the way, the fact that these four letters can
00:04:55
also be pronounced teer shows just
how messed up this whole thing is.
00:05:01
…and also why the consonant
sounds don’t explain anything.
00:05:07
Just look at this quote from Geoffrey Chaucer,
00:05:09
who was writing before the Great Vowel Shift,
or at least only in the early stages of it.
00:05:14
We can learn so much about how vowel
sounds changed just by looking at
00:05:18
the words that so far as he was concerned, rhymed.
00:05:21
In his London dialect, anyway.
00:05:23
So to Chaucer the words breath and heath
rhymed. They were “brayth” and “hayth”.
00:05:28
But they don’t to us anymore.
00:05:30
And that’s because heath went through the
normal changes we’d expect from the Great
00:05:33
Vowel Shift. But breath shortened
like vowel sounds in head and dead.
00:05:40
Double O words also behaved inconsistently during
00:05:42
the Great Vowel Shift. Hence my
earlier point about look and spook.
00:05:46
But you also end up with another sound in blood.
00:05:50
Let’s look at a few more words
that changed during this period.
00:05:53
Well one word that had an interesting voyage
through the Great Vowel Shift is the word boat,
00:05:59
which is pronounced bort - like the modern German
00:06:02
word for boat is now - at the
start of the great vowel shift
00:06:06
but more like it is now by the end.
00:06:08
And actually folk is pronounced more like
00:06:11
the German word Volk before
its vowel sound shifts too.
00:06:14
And In Middle English, the word bite is
pronounced more like beet. In Early Modern
00:06:19
English - so during the shift - it morphs into
bate, and by the present day it becomes bite.
00:06:26
Right? So these differences are big aren’t they?
00:06:29
The way people were speaking changed dramatically.
00:06:33
Chaucer and Shakespeare would have had an awful
00:06:35
lot of trouble understanding
one another as a result.
00:06:38
So whee oh whee… sorry, why
oh why, did all this happen?
00:06:44
Well, that’s a very difficult question
with a lot of very interesting answers.
00:06:49
The most grim among them is that it
was triggered by this: the Black Death.
00:06:54
The violent plague that struck much
of Europe - including England - in
00:06:57
the middle of the 14th century
forced people to move around.
00:07:02
In the wake of the plague they
flocked to devastated cities
00:07:05
like London to take advantage of higher
wages caused by new shortages of people.
00:07:11
So people with different dialects started to mix
00:07:14
and probably influence one
another’s ways of speaking.
00:07:18
Among those to flood into England’s
cities were also migrants from abroad,
00:07:22
whose accents may also have
influenced local dialects.
00:07:26
Now, this is a good time to mention the French,
00:07:28
because they may also have played
a role in the Great Vowel Shift.
00:07:32
Over the centuries during
which the shift took place,
00:07:34
the French went from basically running
England to being its sworn enemies.
00:07:39
And some linguists have suggested that attempts to
00:07:41
sound either more or less French may
have driven some of the vowel changes.
00:07:48
That’s interesting isn’t it, because that suggests
that the Great Vowel Shift was somehow conscious
00:07:53
and that leads us to another possible
contributing factor: fashion.
00:07:58
It’s possible that people were changing the ways
00:08:00
they spoke to sound either more
prestigious or more fashionable.
00:08:05
Fascinating stuff, right?
00:08:06
And then, there’s another major development
in not just the history of England, but the
00:08:09
history of language all over the world,
that almost certainly played its part.
00:08:13
The invention of the printing press.
00:08:16
Suddenly, people can get
books. Literacy increases,
00:08:20
and people are seeing words
written down for the first time.
00:08:23
As a result they’re changing the way
they speak to match the spellings.
00:08:28
That’s an amazing idea right?
And it’s one we can relate to.
00:08:31
You know, it’s not so long ago that forehead was
00:08:34
more commonly pronounced forrud and
arctic was often pronounced artic.
00:08:37
In fact, you can still hear
both but those pronunciations,
00:08:40
but the pronunciations closer to the
spellings have ultimately won out.
00:08:45
Anyway, we need to do a bit more
finger pointing at the printing press,
00:08:48
because many of the spelling problems we’ve
talked about are ultimately its fault.
00:08:52
The arrival of the printing
press leads to a certain
00:08:54
level of standardization of English spelling.
00:08:57
Dictionaries start to be written which help
to fix how certain words should be written.
00:09:02
But all of this is happening in
the middle of the flippin’ vowel
00:09:06
shift meaning that spellings
are getting fixed mid-change.
00:09:10
As I explained in a video ages ago: the fact
we have about a dozen ways of pronouncing
00:09:14
ough is partly down to the words having
their spellings fixed at different times,
00:09:20
or at times when they were pronounced the same.
00:09:24
So we’ve got the Black Death, immigration,
fashion and the printing press:
00:09:28
just some of the probable explanations for the
cause and continuation of the Great Vowel Shift.
00:09:34
But as I said up top, the
shift was a chain of events,
00:09:37
where one change happens and that causes the next.
00:09:41
So it’s the cause of that first
change that we really need to find,
00:09:46
and that has so far proven illusive.
00:09:49
By the way, it’s important to point out that
00:09:50
the Great Vowel Shift didn’t
happen the same everywhere.
00:09:53
These changes are primarily happening in the
area around London and the English Midlands,
00:09:57
the dialects of which do become the
dominant form of British English.
00:10:01
But different areas were affected
to lesser or greater extents by the
00:10:05
shift and that’s apparent in accent
variations across England today.
00:10:09
For example, Northern dialects didn’t
see the change in the pronunciation of
00:10:12
the word “but” that gave us “but”
in the southern English accents.
00:10:16
Where I come from we still say
“butt”. And catch the bus to Lundun.
00:10:21
And you don’t just see - or hear -
the evidence of variations in England.
00:10:25
In Canada it’s there in the way
people say “aboat” instead of “about”.
00:10:30
Which reminds me: the end of the
Great Vowel Shift doesn’t leave
00:10:34
all the vowel sounds in British English the
way they are now. They continue to develop.
00:10:39
But in the meantime, the English language
crosses the Atlantic and an American English
00:10:44
starts to develop, free of the further
changes that happen in Southern England.
00:10:49
That’s why American English,
like Northern English,
00:10:52
doesn’t have that long vowel
sound in bath and grass and dance.
00:10:58
However North American English makes up for it
00:11:00
by incorporating a similar vowel sound
into words like not and caught and hot.
00:11:06
Okay, we’ve covered the GVS and its aftermath,
00:11:09
but the death of English spelling isn’t
just a case of “Murder most vowel”.
00:11:15
[jaunty song] “Rob did a joke there”
00:11:17
“Wasn’t it fun?”
00:11:18
“It was a pun on Murder Most Foul.”
00:11:22
Consonant changes also characterise
the shift from Middle English to
00:11:25
Early Modern English and wreak havoc
with the ways we write things down.
00:11:30
I touched on one earlier when I mentioned
the different pronunciations of this.
00:11:33
You see, In a lot of cases the
sound the GH would have represented,
00:11:37
a sort of ghh sound, either disappears
completely or turns into an F sound.
00:11:43
So we say throo instead of through and
site rather than sicht and coff instead
00:11:45
of cough and ruff instead of rough.
00:11:52
It’s during the Early Modern English
period that certain Ls become silent,
00:11:56
like in folk, but also in almond and palm.
00:12:01
Now if you’re thinking “but I do
pronounce those Ls” that’s because
00:12:04
your dialect either didn’t drop them or
has reinstated them based on the spelling.
00:12:11
Annoyingly, at around the same time, some Ls were
put into words that never previously had them too.
00:12:18
For example, fault never had an L
until some know-all scholar popped
00:12:22
one in to show off the word’s Latin heritage.
00:12:26
They did the same with the C in perfect
and also the silent letters in words like
00:12:30
debt and receipt, but we didn’t
start to pronounce those ones.
00:12:34
Early Modern English also sees the T
sound disappear from castle and hasten,
00:12:38
as well as the D sound in handsome and landscape.
00:12:41
Although the D in landscape is definitely
back and I guess some people maybe
00:12:46
pronounce handsome in hands-ome -
again, influenced by the spelling.
00:12:51
The T in often is another good case of
this. Queen Elizabeth the first supposedly
00:12:56
pronounced it offen, but as early as the
17th century, the T was being pronounced
00:13:01
again by some people who’d spotted it in the
spelling and also in its relation to oft.
00:13:07
Now lots of people say of-ten and it’s absolutely
00:13:11
fine. I fact I think a lot
of the time I say of-ten.
00:13:14
Interestingly though: no one says sof-ten.
00:13:18
And just one more change that
really messes up our spelling.
00:13:22
Around the 17th century Ks and Gs start to
fall silent in words like knight and gnome,
00:13:29
having previously been pronounced.
00:13:31
Linguists think this is probably just
because nee is easier to say than k-nee.
00:13:38
Ni! Ni. Ni.
We humans do tend towards the lazy.
00:13:42
And on that broad philosophical
point… there we have it.
00:13:45
To sum up: English spelling has suffered from the
00:13:48
fact that pronunciation went through radical
changes - to both vowels and consonants - at
00:13:53
precisely the time when we’re trying
to nail down the language on paper.
00:13:59
As a result, many spellings are
a snapshot of a moment in English
00:14:02
history when a word was pronounced
rather differently to it is today.
00:14:07
Thanks Great Vowel Movement.
00:14:07
You’ve really helped us oot.
00:14:11
If you’ve enjoyed this video check,
you should watch this one here next.
00:14:14
And also check out my new podcast
Words Unravelled which you can
00:14:17
watch here or you can listen to
wherever you get your podcasts.
00:14:21
Words Unravelled.
00:14:23
Until we mate again… take care.
