HIS105 - The Sound System of EMnE

hello welcome back to our series of lectures about the history of English in the following we will discuss the sound inventory of early modern English indicating the type of sound changes that led from middle english to early modern english and beyond illustrating the pronunciation of early modern english using audio examples in each case we will proceed as follows first of all we will look at the transition from middle english to early modern english pointing out the major sound changes then we will list the early modern English phonemes in particular and will eventually exemplify the sounds of early modern English by means of a passage from William Shakespeare let us first of all look at the early modern english period itself it began around 1500 and ended around 1700 so let's write these two dates down here 1500 to 1700 its beginning coincides with the ascendancy of Henry the eighth's to the throne in 1509 further socio-cultural milestones that define the early modern english period are the invention of printing the introduction of the printing press to england in 1476 by william caxton this helped to fix the literary language of England in the 16th century another milestone is the gradual break from Rome by Henry the eighth's which led to a highly higher degree of Independence of the English language from other languages and the end of the early modern English period coincides with the age of exploration and colonization and the beginning of the scientific age at around 1700 and then there is of course most influential II the works of William Shakespeare Shakespeare published his works in the late 16th and the early 17th century for this reason for the degree of influence he exerted on the English language early modern English is often alternatively referred to as Experion English the transition from middle english to early modern english was marked by a major change in the pronunciation of the vowels from about thirteen hundred and fifty to fifteen hundred and fifty and beyond eventually to seventeen hundred this change termed the great vowel shift consisted of a shift in the articulation of almost all vowels most distinctively however the long monophthongs the consonantal system remained almost unchanged well this is what happened five of the seven middle english mono songs were raised and two of them were diphthong guised well this simplified animation from the virtual linguistics compass illustrates the changes that took place so let's start in 1350 and you see this is a typical change shift that raised the five of the seven monophthongs and diphthongs guys two of them the ones in the center apart from the great vowel shift early modern English saw no sweeping systematic changes in the middle English vowels nevertheless or short vowels were somehow involved in some changes the following major changes took place in the system of mono thumbs here's the first one the loss of schwa in final unstressed positions so typical examples are words such as mark for example marker became mark or smoother became smooth and later smooth here's another change the change of the fronting of back are to front ah before voiceless fricative z' for example in words such as staff which became staff and class which became class this reminds us of American English doesn't it the third change I want to be discussed is the centering of a mid high vowel to schwa so this affected examples such as run which became running and mud which became mud a fourth mono fungal change can be found before nasals where the mid low front vowel changed to omit hi front vowel so here we have examples such as wing and single where the vowel was lower before this change and the final one of fungal change i want to discuss is the raising of all - all in words such as bolt or bold or cold so these are some central monophthongs or changes that led from middle english to early modern english further changes that mark this transition affected the system of diphthongs so let's look at these in detail so the different you changed to you so the onset was lowered slightly and an example would be words such as pure which became pure or words such as piu became pure the second change is a type of moneth organization where the diphthong ow changed to all so typical examples are words such as cows which became cause or another example would be how which became hawk the next change is another monophthong guys ation process where the diphthong Oh as in no was more of fun guys to know or blue became blue well at last but not least we have the change of a to e again a monofin guys ation which affected words such as die which became D or rise which became raised so much for the vocalic changes that mark the transition from middle english to early modern english the changes in the consonantal system during the early modern english period were relatively small there were only slight readjustments in the system of consonants the following major changes took place and again let's look at them in detail so here's a first one where we had two new phonemes in words such as sing for example sing or leisure so here are two new phonemes which are pronounced in the present day English way another change was the loss of the two allophones of the glottal fricative x' the allophones here and huh so you could argue the last remaining typical german allophones that we still have in germany so words such as ceased became seat or powered became eventually caught another loss affected the alveolar lateral we're now words such as former health became half or to take another example talc became darkened later on talk then we could observe a loss of ker and Gert before final nasal so for example in typical comparatives or words such as long which were formally pronounced longer and changes that occurred in the 18th century where the remaining two first of all the lady Avilla approximant was dropped before an alveolar approximant before are so words words such as wrong became wrong or wrinkled became wrinkled well in the last change affected the degree of rotisserie which became lower and lower as English developed towards present-day English so in the 18th century the post vocalic R was lost in words such as marsh March became march or quarter became quarter so this is an overview of the main changes that mark the transition from middle english to early modern english let's now look at the early modern English phonemes in detail early modern English had eleven monophthongs three diff thongs and twenty-four consonants well here they are let's start with the monophthongs during the early modern English period and before the vowel system of English changed considerably whereas the short vowels experienced the number of fine adjustments the major activity concerned the long vowels as a result of these changes lengths was no longer a distinctive feature of the English vowels here are the five long monophthong so we have five monophthongs green amid hi long vowel E as in meet a middle o as in Mac then a mid high back vowel o as in goat and finally high back vowel o as in food let's continue with the system of the short monophthongs now here are the five short monophthongs and one central mode of song so again let's look at them in detail we have a mid high front vowel E as in kiss a mid Val mid front vowel E as in bed a low front vowel as in that a low back vowel or as in hop a mid high back vowel a mid high back vowel who as in full and finally the central vowel which occurred in unstressed position so the hormone of songul system was no longer a congruent pattern so further sound changes were likely to occur after the transitional state of early modern english early modern english only had three diff thongs they were all up gliding or if you wish closing that is their final element was a high vowel centering diphthongs with schwa as the final element did not occur in early modern English the reason is quite simple words such as here there sure did not exhibit a centering diphthong since our was always pronounced during this period coming out as here there or sure so here are the difference of early modern English a as in pain o as in house and oil as in joy okay so this is the diphthong GLE system the consonantal system of early modern english was almost that of middle english the only system-wide change between the consonants of middle english and early modern english is the loss of the allophonic variants of the glottal fricative so there are no longer any particular allophones of this phoneme and the addition of jaw that is a post alveolar fricative to the system most spelling patterns were formulated in their essential details during late middle english and early early modern english by the end of the 17th century the principle of a fixed spelling for every word was firmly established for printed works and over the course of the following century personal spelling followed suit so by the end of the 17th century modern patterns of spelling and punctuation have been established literature flourished in England during the Renaissance several names such as Edmund Spenser Thomas Moore or Christopher Marlowe are connected with that period but no one had such a great impact on both literature and language as William Shakespeare who is depicted over here who live from 1564 until 1616 he is a unique figure of world literature and his plays and poetry are full of rich language he invented numerous new words and is thus so important for the English language in his works he deals with every facet of human existence so let's finally illustrate the sounds of early modern English using him using an example from Shakespeare well I chose one of his famous sonnets sonnet number 18 okay here we are shall I compare thee to a summers day thou art more lovely and more temperate rough winds do shake the Darling Buds of May and summers lease hath all too short date sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines and often is his gold complexion dimmed and every fair from fair sometime declines by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed but thy eternal summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade when in eternal lines to time thou grow'st so long as men can breathe or eyes can see so long lives this and this gives life to thee well this may suffice as an impression of what early modern English could have sounded like let us summarize during the early modern English period the sound system of early modern English had reached a state very similar to that of present-day English whereas the Continental System apart from some allophonic changes remained relatively stable the system of vowels had changed dramatically due to the effects of the great vowel shift so at the end of the early modern English period the vowel system was almost like it is today however the orthography did not follow this change thus we have a very peculiar situation today a sound system that is completely different from that of earlier periods such as old or middle English and an auto graphical system that does not reflect the new pronunciation rather it represents the pronunciation of English of several centuries ago thank you for listening

Channel: The Virtual Linguistics Campus

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Keywords: Linguistics, Phonology, Historical Linguistics, Early Modern English, English, EMnE, Shakespeare, In-Class, Vowels, EMnE Phonemes, Great Vowel Shift, Middle English, Jürgen, Handke, Linguistics Online, VLC, Virtual Linguistics Campus, Inverted Classroom, Flipped Classroom, E-Lecture, University, College, Student, Education, Community, educational, mobile device, Marburg, University of Marburg, IWB085

Id: pWTFcUZVAlY

Length: 18min 53sec (1133 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 11 2012