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Anybody who knows me more than in passing, knows I have no love of or respect for the current orthography of English. English went through a number of major changes starting in the Early Middle English period (roughly 1100 CE) and ending with the double whammy of the great vowel shift in the Late Middle English and the early Modern English periods and the invention of the printing press. The great vowel shift was responsible for given us the reassignment of cardinal vowel values (a, e, i, o, u) from those in many European languages to those which we have to teach our children when they learn to spell. Especially pernicious are the so-called long vowels, three of which are diphthongs, one of which is a triphthong, and finaly one of which is an actual long vowel, (though it is not quantity that distinguishes it from its short counterpart but quality): (ā /eɪ/, ē /i:/, ī /aɪ/, ō /oʊ/, ū /jʊw/). The part about the printing is that printing was introduced to England at the time when great changes in the pronunciation and grammar of the language were taking place. Also, there is a conservative tendency in spelling to preserve etymological features even after phones have changed drastically. Things like the final e, which was still pronounced as a reduced vowel or schwa in the Middle English period, that partially marked what remained of the Old English case system, became in Modern English a kind of indicator of the pronunciation of the vowel in the previous syllable, e.g., cod, code. Then there are letters that were not being pronounced, but were written because there was a desire to spell things in such a way as to indicate their etymological origin in Latin, e.g., the c in perfect. When we borrowed the French word parfit (at the time, the final t was pronounced), there was no c in it, but soon the spelling became perfect, but still pronounced parfit, but nowadays the c is pronounced. Another favorite of mine is admiral. Here the d not only was not pronounced when the word was borrowed, but is unetymological as the word is ultimately the Arabic (cognate with our word emir). Folks with little Latin and less Greek, assumed that amiral was based on a Latin word, and since they knew that words coming in from French usually lacked the etymological d in the prefix ad- (e.g., aventure, adventire), they stuck one in where it did not belong, and now it is pronounced because there has been a tendency towards pronounced letters that were silent earlier, e.g., often is now commonly pronounced with the t, so much so that I am occasionally corrected when I use the older, preferred pronunciation without the t.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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D'ac, but um, are you ranting, raving, elaborating? Did you want to discuss a particular point?
With your first sentence being: Anybody who knows me more than in passing, knows I have no love of or respect for the current orthography of English. I got the feeling there was going to be a "however" at the end of your post.
It was all interesting though. As an aside, can you tell me how you would pronounce the vowel sounds you presented; (ā /eɪ/, ē /i:/, ī /aɪ/, ō /oʊ/, ū /jʊw/). A couple of word examples would be appreciated since regional pronunciations can skew the example set.
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I'm afraid jim meant those parenthetical sounds to be explicit, presented in IPA notation as they are. unfortunately, they leave many of us gasping for breath. International Phonetic Alphabet
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I got the feeling there was going to be a "however" at the end of your post.
Yeah, but I never got around to the however. I just ran out of steam.
(ā /eɪ/, ē /i:/, ī /aɪ/, ō /oʊ/, ū /jʊw/). A couple of word examples would be appreciated since regional pronunciations can skew the example set.
Sure, here's a table:
Traditional representation | IPA pronunciation | example word:
ā /eɪ/ bait
ē /i:/ beet
ī /aɪ/ byte
ō /oʊ/ boat
ū /jʊw/ butte
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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those parenthetical sounds to be explicit, presented in IPA notation as they are.
Sorry. In my defense, I did add the traditional vowels with macrons to represent the sounds, too.
unfortunately, they leave many of us gasping for breath.
Yes, it is annoying. I feel the same way when people start talking about sports or autos.
Reviewing the sequence, I think that the final one, the long u (ū), is probably better transcribed as /jʊ:/. (So. it would be a diphthong.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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In your initial post you put three things up: the great vowel shift, printing, which more or less coïndided with that shift and etymologizing which tends to support conservativeness in spelling.
Vowel shift. They happened all the time through history. Gradually and at times explosively.
The dawn of printing. Do you mean that the introduction of printing made people more aware of language, grammar, phonology, syntax ? Was there clear a connection ?
The etymologizing of... 'The tendency to preserve etymological features even after phones have changed drastically' means pronunciation and written word did not develop completely synchronic ? And in remote parts of a language region did and do not some old pronunciations stay on, just because they were less touched by the sweep of time?
Dialects preserve old sounds.
Do you think internet and the worldwide hyperactive migration of people causes a sort of explosive vowel shift? I know there is a far greater difference in grammar and sound between me and youngsters today then there was between me and my grandparents.
Any comparison between the introduction of printing and the internet?
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Vowel shift. They happened all the time through history. Gradually and at times explosively.
Yes, but the real thing in English spelling's case is the combo of a radical change in phonology with a preservation of the old orthography. English is possibly the onlymajor European language to have not gone through a orthography reform in 600 or so years.
The dawn of printing. Do you mean that the introduction of printing made people more aware of language, grammar, phonology, syntax ? Was there clear a connection ?
The introduction of printing led to a standardization of spelling and an rise in literacy.
The etymologizing of... 'The tendency to preserve etymological features even after phones have changed drastically' means pronunciation and written word did not develop completely synchronic ? And in remote parts of a language region did and do not some old pronunciations stay on, just because they were less touched by the sweep of time?
Sometimes remote areas preserve archaic features that have been lost in central areas, but not always. Also, some work I've seen suggests that not all change is constant. Some linguists have used an idea from evolutionary biology in historical linguistics, that of punctuated equilibriums.
Dialects preserve old sounds.
Sometimes, but also sometimes dialects diverge while the standard language remains more conservative owing to spelling, literature, etc. especially, if like so many European dialects a standardized orthography is not available for the dialect.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand
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[i]often is now commonly pronounced with the t, so much so that I am occasionally corrected when I use the older, preferred pronunciation without the t. *sigh* Don't tell Fal, but it's one of my pet peeves. Many seem to feel that the "t" adds an aura of sophistication and education. When it comes up with students (or I just ramble into my peeve for some reason...), I always bring up "soften" and ask if they've ever heard someone pronounce the "t" in that word. I haven't yet been told that it's been heard. Then I get to teach them "oft", so like "soft", but an oft ignored word all on its own. Students often complain that Spanish is, get this, "harder than English". Oy. It's obvious they don't know English well (they really don't). But Spanish vowels make learning the language so much easier, because there is only the one set, no long and short. In fact, once they are learned, one can read anything in Spanish, whether one understands it or not, and pronounce every word correctly. Try that in English!
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Bran asks, "Do you think internet and the worldwide hyperactive migration of people causes a sort of explosive vowel shift? I know there is a far greater difference in grammar and sound between me and youngsters today then there was between me and my grandparents."
I think this is an interesting question; how often do you suppose this sort of question was asked *while the Great Vowel Shift was actually happening!
-joe (re-asking the unanswered) friday
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*sigh* Don't tell Fal, but it's one of my pet peeves.
There's nothing wrong with peeves as long as you remain in control. That is one of the things that Nunc was showing us how to do in his opening post. And as far as vowel shifts go, there's one happening right now. It's called the Northern Urban Chain Shift. there's a couple of others going on, too. There's a Southern Vowel Shift and a Western Vowel Shift in Northern Arizona. YCLTU.
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