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English long vowels changed their sound between roughly 1400 and 1700, a change now called the Great Vowel Shift. Printing reached England in the middle of it, in 1476, so spelling began to settle while pronunciation was still moving.

Historical linguistics / Great Vowel Shift

LanguageHistory

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The Danish linguist Otto Jespersen gave the change its name in 1909. Before it, 'bite' sounded roughly like today's 'beet', and 'boot' roughly like today's 'boat': each long vowel moved higher in the mouth, and the highest ones turned into the double vowel sounds now heard in 'bite' and 'house'. Because scribes and printers were fixing spellings while this was happening, English letters often record older sounds. Other things widened the gap too: borrowed words, a mix of dialects, letters added to show a Latin root (the 'b' in 'debt'), and later changes such as the loss of the 'k' and 'gh' sounds in 'knight'. Why the shift happened at all is still debated.

Türkçe oku
İngilizcedeki uzun ünlülerin sesi yaklaşık 1400 ile 1700 arasında köklü biçimde değişti; dilbilimciler buna Büyük Ünlü Kayması der. Matbaa İngiltere'ye tam bu dönemin ortasında, 1476'da geldi. Böylece yazım, söyleyiş hâlâ değişirken oturmaya başladı.

Değişime adını 1909'da Danimarkalı dilbilimci Otto Jespersen verdi. Kaymadan önce “bite” aşağı yukarı bugünkü “beet” gibi, “boot” da bugünkü “boat” gibi okunuyordu. Uzun ünlülerin her biri ağızda bir basamak yukarı çıktı; en üstteki ünlüler de bugün “bite” ve “house” kelimelerinde duyulan, iki ünlünün kaynaşmasıyla oluşan seslere dönüştü. Yazım tam bu sırada kâtiplerin ve matbaacıların elinde oturduğu için İngilizce harfler çoğu zaman eski sesleri gösterir. Aradaki farkı açan başka etkenler de var: başka dillerden alınan kelimeler, lehçelerin karışması, Latince kökü göstermek için eklenen harfler (“debt” kelimesindeki “b” gibi) ve “knight” kelimesindeki “k” ile “gh” seslerinin düşmesi gibi sonraki değişimler. Kaymanın neden yaşandığı ise hâlâ tartışılıyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Great Vowel Shift
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