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Actually, the vowel of both words was the same.
ee and ea generally had different pronunciations in Middle English, but speke and speche were pronounced with the same vowel. There was just some confusion about how to spell them. (I assume this confusion arose after the two different pronunciations represented by ee and ea merged, but I don't know.) Another word with similar confusion is complete/compleet/compleat. This is according to the awesome The History of English Spelling by Upward and Davidson.
Last edited by gooofy; 05/11/12 11:55 PM.
Entire Thread Subject Posted By Posted speak vs. speech donna22 05/10/12 02:13 PM Re: speak vs. speech tsuwm 05/10/12 03:11 PM Re: speak vs. speech BranShea 05/10/12 06:23 PM Re: speak vs. speech Faldage 05/10/12 07:09 PM Re: speak vs. speech gooofy 05/11/12 11:54 PM Re: speak vs. speech Faldage 05/12/12 12:51 AM Re: speak vs. speech LukeJavan8 05/12/12 03:00 PM Re: speak vs. speech Jackie 06/09/12 01:34 AM
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