Re: USAGE: The Great Vowel Shift

On Sun, Apr 06, 2003 at 06:38:30PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Here are four versions of the same dialogue, illustrating the progress of the
> English GVS.  In each case, the male speaker is the more conservative, and
> the female speaker is more advanced.
>
> http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/sound/me.wav
> http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/sound/1450.wav
> http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/sound/1550.wav
> http://alpha.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/sound/1650.wav
!!!! This is amazing. Thanks for the link! Middle English sounds
completely like a foreign language the first time I heard it.

> And here's a recap of the 8 steps:
>
> 1.  i and u move down to @I and @U.
> 2.  e and o move up to i and u.
> 3.  a moves forward to &.
> 4.  E and O move up and out to e and o.
> 5.  & moves up to E.
> 6.  e (both inherited and from step 4) moves up to i.
> 7.  E (both inherited and from step 5) moves up to e.
> 8.  @I and @U move down and break to aI and aU.
>
> To which we can add:
>
> 9.  e and o break to eI and oU.
> 10. (RP) oU moves down and in to VU.
>
> Steps 1-7 constitute a classical pull-chain shift.
[snip]

Fascinating. And now, to work a sound change scheme that mutates Ebisedian
beyond all recognition. :-P


T

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