Originally Posted By: gooofy
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.


Thanks, goofy. That sounds like a good book. There's certainly plenty of grist for its mill.