This lecturer is brilliant not only does he clarify it all perfectly but he also uses pauses, slow pace and clear pronounciation so that all sounds clear.
He just happens to be a scholar with the right pedigree for this task, and he does a superb job in this presentation. He is someone who has done his homework.
Can’t believe this thing exists!! The man (I mean the respected professor) gives all in a nutshell! At least 5 books are summarized therein. Thank you! May his almighty awards you as you wish
Outstandingly lucid presentation, backed by an outstanding grasp of the issue. I especially appreciate that the good Professor speaks in complete sentences when lecturing. The board graphics were VERY helpful. Thank you, Sir !
+Taira Savio So do I. I was taught in a classical format. But I had supoerb teachers: David Crystal, Mike Garman, Peter Trudgill and my German mentors: Ekkehard König and Claus Gnutzmann. I hope I can return something they gave me.
I've seen the Great Vowel Shift 'explained' so many times in textbooks with barely a gloss-over. This makes things much easier to understand and absorb.
All my lecturer said was"check the text book. It's all there." And here I am listening to your wonderful lecture that is going to save me from a great FAIL. THANK YOU SIR.
Thanks a lot for this wonderful lecture. Spanish is my native language, and its vowel system is much less complicated than the one found in English. Thus, sometimes I have some problems figuring out how not to mispronounce some words. This lecture helps me understand how to do it and where to be careful. I'll keep trying. English is an interesting language, though a little hard.
You are spot on. English is quite an easy language if one simply wishes to speak it quickly. It is very flexible and tolerates many errors. But it is a devilishly difficult language to write. Because it has rules but rules with so many exceptions. [ 'i' before 'e' is the rule, but 'except after 'c' as in pie, lie and piece and ceiling. But if the word sounds like 'A' as in neighbour, weight...] You see the trouble here? The only way really is to learn them. Also English does indeed have the same grammatical structure as the Old GErman from which it comes: it is just hidden. So English easy to learn quickly if to be spoken only. But very difficult to write properly and extremely difficult to write well. Por cierto, yo aprendiendo Español en este momento. Es increible lo similar que es al Ingles en mi opinion
I've been using quite a few of the these e-lectures for my History of English class and wanted to say thanks. Very detailed, thorough, and well explained lectures. Quite an accomplishment I would say.
This is really absolutely undoubtedly a very substantial e-lecture which can help my students studying the history of English. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise Sir! With love from the Philippines.
I've often wondered how this sort of thing affects the reading of Shakespeare or other early verse.. rhyme scheme and rhythm in general can be drastically changed by pronunciation and I always felt like I was missing something..
Thank you very much for this, i was just asked about an inconsistency in the English language, and after watching this, i am able to explain it. Again, many thanks Sir.
Very interesting comment. There are many varieties of English whose vowels are at least to some extent similar to those of EMnE. Take Northern English, for example: my house comes out as /mi hus/. And in Scottish English? The upgliding diphthong in "now" has a central onset resulting in /əʊ/ or take "bow" where the vowel is not dipthongal at all but is realized as a plain /o:/. So, some varieties of PDE are pretty close to EMnE.
I like how his pronunciation of the Old English words with a lot more natural to him than of the modern ones. It really highlights the Germanic roots of the English language and its gradual shift towards a more francophone sound.
It's quite charming to see how the modern vowel chart is emerging through a consequence of linguistical changes. Spells of tongue evolution are striking.
Thank you for your effort in developing and presenting this incredibly informative and interesting content. I would very much like to understand the impact of Language Contact on North American English accents. Do you have any information on that? For example, I’ve often wondered if the New York accent can be attributed to the Dutch language, the Appalachian accent to the Scots-Irish English accent, and the affect of German/Scandinavian immigration on the upper Midwest accent. How about the Southern US accent? Why are their vowels so different and why do some versions of that accent involve speaking really slowly (e.g. Mississippi/Alabama) and some involve speaking extremely fast (e.g. any NASCAR driver from North Carolina). The ultimate would be to understand why some versions of the Southern US accent whistle their S-sounds (e.g. West Texsasssss). Also, is there any research on the impact of English speaker immigration on the accents of non-English speakers (e.g. the Quebec French accent)? I'd also really like to understand the impact (if any) of the Vikings on language in England, Spain, Normandy, Russia, Turkey, and everywhere else those people visited. Now that I’ve written all this out, maybe I should just go ahead and watch all of your videos. This is so interesting!
It's really funny thing. Almost all of archaic ways of pronounce these vowels are exactly how we pronounce them in modern Portuguese. For the first time I'm hearing an Englishman pronouncing English with exactly the same mistakes I see Portuguese(br) speakers make in their earliest English classes.
Do you mean you're still right ? Probably, I wouldn't know. When I speak with Brazilians, which doesn't happen very often, we usually speak in Portuguese. All I'm saying is that Jürgen Handke is perhaps not the best model when it comes to the pronunciation of English sounds. For example, his "long" vowels are much too short.
Fascinating subject. Did similar shits take place in other languages? It would be nice if you could make a video like that about German, or how did the split between let say Italian, Spanish and French pronunciation occur. Thanks for a great video.
Scots were less affected by the linguistic changes in the south, partly due to locality and the fact that during the time when all the major changes happened, Scotland was an independent country.
8:09-8:17: it's still been a mystery to me that they can distinct 'a' of maken and 'ae' of maken in the sentences. i wonder both sounds have any difference in a speech recognition context.
Es gibt ja bekanntlich viele Ansichten darüber, wie genau der Great Vowel Shift abgelaufen ist (Jespersen, Luick, Görlach, Barber, ....). Darf ich fragen auf welchen Autoren/Werken die hier dargestellte (und für mich sehr logisch erscheinende) Reihenfolge der einzelnen Verschiebungen basiert?
It's a pity that you wrote your question in German. You are asking for literature back up. As I said in many videos, the respective references are given in the virtual sessions on the Virtual Linguistics Campus with which these E-Lectures are linked.
I'm about to have a test about this... and no matter how I tried, I just couldn't understand it. Thank you so much for this lecture. I've even made a quick review of the cardinal vowel chart! :D
A lovely lecture, very informative... and i'm only seeing this by mistake! Interesting to see the lecturer saying words that i instantly recognise as specific regional pronunciations. :)
Clearly, this vowel shift did not occur uniformly across the English speaking world. My grandmother from Lancashire rhymed look and moon and book. We hear that in that in English spoken in Africa and the Caribbean. My old mother in law was from the Ozark mountains, and used archaic verb forms and pronunciations more akin to Elizabethan English, e.g. Git ye a-goin', instead of Get going.
Northerner's retain more of the original sounds. I'm from Lancashire and many of the previous generation pronounce moon and look but the current one don't. We still have a lot of the old vowels.
Cool! I minored in Linguistics in college, but this information is so much more detailed than I learned back then. And also another reason to think King Henry VIII rocked! Thanks for a most enjoyable experience!
Quite interesting and useful, as it sheds a light on one of the reasons for the differences in pronunciation from one region to another. However, if you're planning another version of the same, it might be a good idea to insist a bit more on the length of long vowels.
Very interesting lecture, I am more persuaded by the migration / mixing theory re the GVS, as to my ear a lot of the old forms of the word are 'Northern' in pronunciation, whilst the modern forms are 'Southern'. A quick query - how does the elongation of certain vowels in Southern dialectics vs. the short form in Northern ones fit into this schema?
Quick query on a big topic… ;-) Re the long southern and short northern… what kind of examples are you talking about? “bath”, “grass” etc.? This is a conditioned change in southern dialects before unvoiced fricatives…. In order to answer your questions you’d have to delve deep into dialectology as the vowel systems of northern dialects were quite different fron the south, the far north, Cumbrian and Northumbrian aligning closer to the Scots vowel system. Every one of the Middle English larger dialect areas had their own respective phonologies. Also, northern dialect areas were and still are more conservative than the south. A 15th century London pronunciation would sound quite northern to the modern ear, while contemporary northern dialects would have had different vowels in different lexical sets. Many northern dialects with their own evolution in vowel systems were slowly given up in the latter half of the 20th century for what we could call a northern realisation of the standard English vowel system, but still pronounced with the accent and articulation of the northern dialects’ vowel sounds. Thus modern northern came more in line with standard pronunciation with a northern accent, while actual northern dialect speech is becoming rare and may only be heard from older speakers. In order to get a statisfactory answer, you’d have to look into the history of each dialect area and see how the GVS affected these areas respectively. For example, take the word “night”, in early Middle English this would have been something like [nɪçt] in both northern and southern dialects. The south was more dynamic and the vowel was raised and lengthened as [ç] = started fading, and became [niːt], and then towards early modern English took part in the GVS going through [nəit] to [naɪt]. The north lost the later and ‘missed’ the GVS is this word, which is why traditional Yorkshire or Lancashire dialects had [niːt] right into the 20th century. Then through education, spoken media and dialect stigmatisation, people in the north started pronouncing the ‘southern’ form [naɪt], retaining their northern accent and articulation habits, but in essence we have a southern form taken over in the north.
Thanks for the lection! I have an interesting and difficult question to solve: How do we know about ancient sounds in English? I mean we cannot meet real Middle English speakers.
Create your (free) account on oer-vlc.de and become a member of the Virtual Linguistics Campus where you have free access to all courses, to the largest language data collection and huge multimedial glossaries. See you there! ... and look at the Micro-Credential class "Middle English".
It's changing rapidly now-a-days, but not so long ago (I'm talking of my grandfathers days when he was old in 1960s), you could go deep into the English countryside in Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire or Wiltshire and hear accents, certainly, and dialects still spoken which I believe were the direct (and not much altered) descendents of Anglo-Saxon. Meat for example was till pronounced as 'Maet' by my grandfather and uncles - all farmers and countrymen. Those three counties (shires) were staunchly part of the old Kingdom of Wessex and were never 'conquered' until all England was conquered in 1066. Even today I think that the accents used there are probably very close to how Anglo-Saxon sounded, even though used now with modern English and increasingly fewer local dialect words. I focus on Wessex because it was never conquered unlike all the other parts of England which was, by the Danes, for example.
The Dutch language has undergone similar chages too. MiddleDutch Tied, became ModernDutch Tijd, MiddleDutch Huus became ModernDutch Huis. While in the low Saxon dialects these old germanic vowels are still retained, for example Tied and Hoes. The Twents low Saxon still retains the old germanic long oo, like Hook, Good, Voot. In ModernDutch Hoek, Goed and Voet. High German has also undergone similar vowel shifts during the late midle ages.
these are also interesting as I know them from dutch nedersaksian: kobold --> kabouter aiver --> ooievaar (omg, what an ugly word!) laif --> lief gold --> goud wold --> woud hold --> houd (as in: ik hold van die)
thank you sooooo much. i m french and we struggle so much with the vowels pronunciation. Your presentation is crystal clear :) I think than before this shift the pronouciation sounded veeery french. actually if we read english with french vowels pronunciation, it resembles the previous english pronunciation a lot :) do you think it was due to the french kings period?
Is not raising synonym with closing? The higher the tongue the less air can go through. So, why is the shift from /i:/ to /ai/ supposed to be a raising? Isn't /i:/ the most closed vowel of all? Same question with the shift from /u:/ to /ou/.
Herr Professor, ich heiße Rama aus Indonesien. How did people say "What time is it (now)?" in Shakespearian English or Early Modern English? Is it "How late is it (now)?" or "How many hour is it? (cf. Ger. Wie spät ist es? Wie viel Uhr ist es? Du. Hoe laat is het?)
Vielen Dank, Herr Professor Handke! Sie haben mir fuer die Vorbereitung meines Geschichte der Englischen Sprache Exams wirklich geholfen. Planen Sie auch E-Vorlesungen ueber die Geschischte der Deutschen Sprache zu posten? Noch vielen Dank und freundliche Gruesse aus Italien.
Yes. I've also noticed this. In addition, another a vowel /au/ as in "mouse" and "house" is evolving where the first part of the diphthong has fronted giving /æu/ typical of modern London speech. In Cockney the second element is lowered giving /æa/ or continues it's evolution to /æə/ and monothongizing to /æ:/, this mirrors changes that occurred over 1600 years ago when Proto-Germanic /au/ became Anglo Saxon /ea/
I always fantasize about time traveling back to Middle Age Europe, specifically what is now the UK and Ireland. I would be so lost trying to communicate with these people, but I imagine once I got the vowel shifts down I'd be able to "pass" more easily. If I'm not burned at the stake before that, anyway. Loved this video! Great refresher of my linguistic anthropology class in college.
I will start like this, as an English person, I can see all the discrepancies in English pronunciation, but I accept them as normal. I was born in Enfield, North London to parents from Staffordshire, and in turn who's parents came from Stafford via Bethnal Green (East London), Hull (Humberside), Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent) and Pruszcz (Swiecie, Poland). I myself have lived in Enfield, Stoke-on-Trent, Liverpool and Boston Mass.(briefly). Jag talar engelska, lite franska, lite tyska och lite svenska. I am an incredibly good mimic of dialects and phonology in general. I'm also an incredibly good 'by ear' musician with perfect pitch. Every time I have spoken to a native speaker, they always say that my pronunciation is perfect, even if my sentence structure and vocabulary isn't. I have always wondered if the two are linked, that is; whether or not I can understand it, I can still mimic the sounds, because I can also mimic the sounds in music too? One big thing for me is that I can mimic the sounds better if I can see it written down in latin script, if I can see how the words are formed, as my 'ability to mimic' also applies to Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese too, and I have been tested in mimicry to 'wows'. Anyway, onwards to the point of me posting this! My natural accent is what would be perceived as being 'English', but certainly not RP, and not dialectical. It's neutral and hard to locate, although I have been told that I sound 'posh'. I frequently switch between dialects dependent upon whom I am talking to. I also find myself pronouncing things in Gen. Am. more and more frequently, just because of the prevalence of American television shows. As a person who frequently vowel, consonant and even dialect shifts himself personally dependent on context, who isn't really 'from a place' other than England. I can actually see how the vowel changes occurred implicitly, and I can mimic them all perfectly. Although my accent is incredibly muddled, the one thing I find that I still maintain in my natural pronunciation, my natural accent, is words such as dance, bath, path etc with the long (almost ar) a. Whilst I am aware of every other change in my natural accent and dialect due to context, even the different pronunciations of 'u' (buck, book), for some reason that long 'a' pronunciation has always stuck with me, in any dialectical switch. In most cases it's what gives me away as being a(n English) southerner. I find it strange that that one particular aspect of speech would stick with me, when seemingly everything else is always fluid.
Everywhere you have mentioned your family coming from uses long A in words, even Hull with an 'ar' noise. As I said above, West Country English is very odd and proper hard to mimic due to random sound slides and incredibly specific regional sounds (e.g Dorset pronounced by a person from Dorset as 'Darrsit' from a foreign ear, however in Devon it would be pronounced 'Derset' or something similar
I think it's interesting how in modern day Cockney the long vowels /i:/ and /u:/ as in "beet" and "boot" are diphthongized to /əi/ and /əʊ/, mirroring the first stage of the GVS.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
This lecturer is brilliant not only does he clarify it all perfectly but he also uses pauses, slow pace and clear pronounciation so that all sounds clear.
He just happens to be a scholar with the right pedigree for this task, and he does a superb job in this presentation. He is someone who has done his homework.
Can’t believe this thing exists!! The man (I mean the respected professor) gives all in a nutshell! At least 5 books are summarized therein.
Thank you! May his almighty awards you as you wish
Outstandingly lucid presentation, backed by an outstanding grasp of the issue. I especially appreciate that the good Professor speaks in complete sentences when lecturing. The board graphics were VERY helpful. Thank you, Sir !
This lecture is fantastic. The topic was never studied in my years at university and I'm glad I have knowledge of it now. Thank you.
You have just saved a poor literature student in helping me pass (and ace) a dreaded linguistics exam. Thank you ever so much!
I wish I could have had internet e-lectures when I was a student - 20 years ago! Thanks!
+Taira Savio So do I. I was taught in a classical format. But I had supoerb teachers: David Crystal, Mike Garman, Peter Trudgill and my German mentors: Ekkehard König and Claus Gnutzmann. I hope I can return something they gave me.
+The Virtual Linguistics C
+The Virtual Linguistics Campus
David Crystal? :O
internet really helps, specially in academics; the whole world at your help.
The Virtual Linguistics Campus
Ein wunderbares Video. Vielen Dank!
I've seen the Great Vowel Shift 'explained' so many times in textbooks with barely a gloss-over. This makes things much easier to understand and absorb.
this is so awesome! I have just understood what I haven't managed in 2.5 years of studying english. thank you!!!
Tiffany Tremurici Very motivating comment. We will make sure that you understand a lot more as time goes by.
All my lecturer said was"check the text book. It's all there." And here I am listening to your wonderful lecture that is going to save me from a great FAIL. THANK YOU SIR.
It's a pleasure.
Jürgen is the man! This History of English series is fantastic!
I find this lecture awesome. You cover this topic in a very structured and understandable manner. Thank you!
Thanks a lot for this wonderful lecture. Spanish is my native language, and its vowel system is much less complicated than the one found in English. Thus, sometimes I have some problems figuring out how not to mispronounce some words. This lecture helps me understand how to do it and where to be careful. I'll keep trying. English is an interesting language, though a little hard.
Your English seems really good to me and I'm a native speaker.
And I still don’t know how to pronounce e
@@gorgondrifter458 Never underestimate Google Translate algorithms' efficacy, LOL
You are spot on.
English is quite an easy language if one simply wishes to speak it quickly. It is very flexible and tolerates many errors. But it is a devilishly difficult language to write. Because it has rules but rules with so many exceptions. [ 'i' before 'e' is the rule, but 'except after 'c' as in pie, lie and piece and ceiling. But if the word sounds like 'A' as in neighbour, weight...] You see the trouble here? The only way really is to learn them.
Also English does indeed have the same grammatical structure as the Old GErman from which it comes: it is just hidden.
So English easy to learn quickly if to be spoken only.
But very difficult to write properly and extremely difficult to write well.
Por cierto, yo aprendiendo Español en este momento. Es increible lo similar que es al Ingles en mi opinion
Thank you so much Dr Handke you're a life saver!!!
I've been using quite a few of the these e-lectures for my History of English class and wanted to say thanks. Very detailed, thorough, and well explained lectures. Quite an accomplishment I would say.
wow, this was amazingly good!! I didn't understand stage7 very well, but the lecture was of precious help. Thank you!!
Northern English dialects seem to follow the vowels before the great vowel shift. Don't you think?
Fascinating lecture which explains a lot of developments in modern English, as well as why regional accents have their unique qualities.
Very clear, thorough and professional. Thank you
This is really absolutely undoubtedly a very substantial e-lecture which can help my students studying the history of English. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise Sir! With love from the Philippines.
Awesome. I'm studying linguistics at home and while brief, I feel that this is a great, comprehensive introduction to the Great Vowel Shift. Thanks!
I've often wondered how this sort of thing affects the reading of Shakespeare or other early verse.. rhyme scheme and rhythm in general can be drastically changed by pronunciation and I always felt like I was missing something..
+glenthemann You can find out by looking at our video: ruclips.net/video/Z9eG8nhJx1c/видео.html
look up Ben Crystal's original pronunciation for a great bit of research into what Shakespearean English sounded like.
Quite impressed that he can smoothly pronounce all of the variations of the vowels.
Very helpful. I've read some about the GVS but it was good to hear someone pronounce the differences.
Thank you very much! Very insightful! Thank you for making this concise lecture available!!
This must be one of the best lectures I have watch. Congratulations for such a good work.
Thanks a lot!
I've been struggling with this for so long🥺Thank you for such a flawless explanation🌷
This is a great lecture. I knew virtually nothing about this before and it was really interesting throughout!
Thank you very much for this, i was just asked about an inconsistency in the English language, and after watching this, i am able to explain it. Again, many thanks Sir.
Such a great and understandable lecture!
What a wonderful and enlightening lecture! Thank you!
This is really helpful for understanding material I missed in my linguistics class while I was sick. Many thanks.
This is so useful in order to understand why different speakers of English will probably say any given word (a bit) differently from one another.
Fabulous, thanks ever so much! Revision became a lot clearer! Life saver
Excellent lecture. Clear, concise, and effective.
Thank you sir. I did not understand my class teacher but for this lecture l have understood.mungu akubariki sana!
Very interesting comment. There are many varieties of English whose vowels are at least to some extent similar to those of EMnE. Take Northern English, for example: my house comes out as /mi hus/. And in Scottish English? The upgliding diphthong in "now" has a central onset resulting in /əʊ/ or take "bow" where the vowel is not dipthongal at all but is realized as a plain /o:/. So, some varieties of PDE are pretty close to EMnE.
Your lectures are very informative and easy to follow. Thank you.
Thank you very much! That helped me a lot in preparation for the test
I like how his pronunciation of the Old English words with a lot more natural to him than of the modern ones. It really highlights the Germanic roots of the English language and its gradual shift towards a more francophone sound.
Very well communicated, good content, and much appreciated
Very clear explanation, thanks a lot!
It's quite charming to see how the modern vowel chart is emerging through a consequence of linguistical changes. Spells of tongue evolution are striking.
Thank you for your effort in developing and presenting this incredibly informative and interesting content. I would very much like to understand the impact of Language Contact on North American English accents. Do you have any information on that? For example, I’ve often wondered if the New York accent can be attributed to the Dutch language, the Appalachian accent to the Scots-Irish English accent, and the affect of German/Scandinavian immigration on the upper Midwest accent. How about the Southern US accent? Why are their vowels so different and why do some versions of that accent involve speaking really slowly (e.g. Mississippi/Alabama) and some involve speaking extremely fast (e.g. any NASCAR driver from North Carolina). The ultimate would be to understand why some versions of the Southern US accent whistle their S-sounds (e.g. West Texsasssss). Also, is there any research on the impact of English speaker immigration on the accents of non-English speakers (e.g. the Quebec French accent)? I'd also really like to understand the impact (if any) of the Vikings on language in England, Spain, Normandy, Russia, Turkey, and everywhere else those people visited. Now that I’ve written all this out, maybe I should just go ahead and watch all of your videos. This is so interesting!
Fascinating. Thank you for posting.
Hiberno-English - at least until quite recently - featured several pre-GVS long vowels.
It's really funny thing. Almost all of archaic ways of pronounce these vowels are exactly how we pronounce them in modern Portuguese. For the first time I'm hearing an Englishman pronouncing English with exactly the same mistakes I see Portuguese(br) speakers make in their earliest English classes.
Only he's not an Englishman, he's German.
troiscarottes im still true
Do you mean you're still right ? Probably, I wouldn't know. When I speak with Brazilians, which doesn't happen very often, we usually speak in Portuguese. All I'm saying is that Jürgen Handke is perhaps not the best model when it comes to the pronunciation of English sounds. For example, his "long" vowels are much too short.
I thought exactly the same way :D , much more understandable (RS aqui :))
pre vowel shift reveals the germanic heritage of eng
Great lecture, easy to follow and much better than the text our lecturer gave us in university
I can't tell if middle english sounded more like modern scottish because of how the vowels were pronounced or because of the lecturer's accent :P
No accent on the demonstrated vowels though.
Fascinating subject. Did similar shits take place in other languages? It would be nice if you could make a video like that about German, or how did the split between let say Italian, Spanish and French pronunciation occur. Thanks for a great video.
Pre vowel shift seems it would sound a lot like a Scottish accent. Is there something to that?
Scots were less affected by the linguistic changes in the south, partly due to locality and the fact that during the time when all the major changes happened, Scotland was an independent country.
Thank you Professor. your lecture was immensely helpful.
Yes it helps a lot, thank you so much
8:09-8:17: it's still been a mystery to me that they can distinct 'a' of maken and 'ae' of maken in the sentences. i wonder both sounds have any difference in a speech recognition context.
Thank you for this video. It has really helped me A LOT!
They really should've called it "The Great Vowel Movement"...
I mean, they're pretty synonymous... :P And I'm also certain I've heard it referred to as that as well.
never decry a substantial (or minor) VM !
For non-native speakers, learning these is like The great bowel movement
POOP REFERENCE!
*Bowel Movement
Es gibt ja bekanntlich viele Ansichten darüber, wie genau der Great Vowel Shift abgelaufen ist (Jespersen, Luick, Görlach, Barber, ....). Darf ich fragen auf welchen Autoren/Werken die hier dargestellte (und für mich sehr logisch erscheinende) Reihenfolge der einzelnen Verschiebungen basiert?
It's a pity that you wrote your question in German. You are asking for literature back up. As I said in many videos, the respective references are given in the virtual sessions on the Virtual Linguistics Campus with which these E-Lectures are linked.
Learned and fascinating. Thank you very much
I'm about to have a test about this... and no matter how I tried, I just couldn't understand it. Thank you so much for this lecture. I've even made a quick review of the cardinal vowel chart! :D
A lovely lecture, very informative... and i'm only seeing this by mistake!
Interesting to see the lecturer saying words that i instantly recognise as specific regional pronunciations. :)
An excellent and very interesting exposition. Thank you!
Very interesting and educational. Thank you from LA!
Daniel C Thank you. Spread the word, too few people know about this channel.
Clearly, this vowel shift did not occur uniformly across the English speaking world. My grandmother from Lancashire rhymed look and moon and book. We hear that in that in English spoken in Africa and the Caribbean. My old mother in law was from the Ozark mountains, and used archaic verb forms and pronunciations more akin to Elizabethan English, e.g. Git ye a-goin', instead of Get going.
Northerner's retain more of the original sounds. I'm from Lancashire and many of the previous generation pronounce moon and look but the current one don't. We still have a lot of the old vowels.
This channel's lit.
Thank you so much you have helped me tremendously to develop my understanding of English
Crystal clear, thank you!
Cool! I minored in Linguistics in college, but this information is so much more detailed than I learned back then. And also another reason to think King Henry VIII rocked! Thanks for a most enjoyable experience!
Quite interesting and useful, as it sheds a light on one of the reasons for the differences in pronunciation from one region to another. However, if you're planning another version of the same, it might be a good idea to insist a bit more on the length of long vowels.
great work, really much appreciated.
Isn' t the word "speak" in 7:15 placed wrong? It must have been pronounced as "meat" with [ɛ:] and became [e:] in EMnE, only later it became [i:].
Very interesting lecture, I am more persuaded by the migration / mixing theory re the GVS, as to my ear a lot of the old forms of the word are 'Northern' in pronunciation, whilst the modern forms are 'Southern'. A quick query - how does the elongation of certain vowels in Southern dialectics vs. the short form in Northern ones fit into this schema?
Quick query on a big topic… ;-) Re the long southern and short northern… what kind of examples are you talking about? “bath”, “grass” etc.? This is a conditioned change in southern dialects before unvoiced fricatives…. In order to answer your questions you’d have to delve deep into dialectology as the vowel systems of northern dialects were quite different fron the south, the far north, Cumbrian and Northumbrian aligning closer to the Scots vowel system. Every one of the Middle English larger dialect areas had their own respective phonologies. Also, northern dialect areas were and still are more conservative than the south. A 15th century London pronunciation would sound quite northern to the modern ear, while contemporary northern dialects would have had different vowels in different lexical sets. Many northern dialects with their own evolution in vowel systems were slowly given up in the latter half of the 20th century for what we could call a northern realisation of the standard English vowel system, but still pronounced with the accent and articulation of the northern dialects’ vowel sounds. Thus modern northern came more in line with standard pronunciation with a northern accent, while actual northern dialect speech is becoming rare and may only be heard from older speakers. In order to get a statisfactory answer, you’d have to look into the history of each dialect area and see how the GVS affected these areas respectively. For example, take the word “night”, in early Middle English this would have been something like [nɪçt] in both northern and southern dialects. The south was more dynamic and the vowel was raised and lengthened as [ç] = started fading, and became [niːt], and then towards early modern English took part in the GVS going through [nəit] to [naɪt]. The north lost the later and ‘missed’ the GVS is this word, which is why traditional Yorkshire or Lancashire dialects had [niːt] right into the 20th century. Then through education, spoken media and dialect stigmatisation, people in the north started pronouncing the ‘southern’ form [naɪt], retaining their northern accent and articulation habits, but in essence we have a southern form taken over in the north.
Thank you very much for the lecture!
Thanks for the lection! I have an interesting and difficult question to solve: How do we know about ancient sounds in English? I mean we cannot meet real Middle English speakers.
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It's changing rapidly now-a-days, but not so long ago (I'm talking of my grandfathers days when he was old in 1960s), you could go deep into the English countryside in Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire or Wiltshire and hear accents, certainly, and dialects still spoken which I believe were the direct (and not much altered) descendents of Anglo-Saxon. Meat for example was till pronounced as 'Maet' by my grandfather and uncles - all farmers and countrymen. Those three counties (shires) were staunchly part of the old Kingdom of Wessex and were never 'conquered' until all England was conquered in 1066.
Even today I think that the accents used there are probably very close to how Anglo-Saxon sounded, even though used now with modern English and increasingly fewer local dialect words.
I focus on Wessex because it was never conquered unlike all the other parts of England which was, by the Danes, for example.
Fantastic video. Thanks!
Wow! That was great! Thank you very much!
You guys understand that Professor Handke is a german lector of a german university?
The Dutch language has undergone similar chages too. MiddleDutch Tied, became ModernDutch Tijd, MiddleDutch Huus became ModernDutch Huis. While in the low Saxon dialects these old germanic vowels are still retained, for example Tied and Hoes. The Twents low Saxon still retains the old germanic long oo, like Hook, Good, Voot. In ModernDutch Hoek, Goed and Voet.
High German has also undergone similar vowel shifts during the late midle ages.
these are also interesting as I know them from dutch nedersaksian:
kobold --> kabouter
aiver --> ooievaar (omg, what an ugly word!)
laif --> lief
gold --> goud
wold --> woud
hold --> houd (as in: ik hold van die)
can anybody explain to me why the long a in make becomes a dyphthong (ei)? I can't get through that passage.
Thank you (from Brazil!).
+rafaelacarla Thank you from Brazil 2
Extremely amazing lecture...got it
thank you sooooo much. i m french and we struggle so much with the vowels pronunciation. Your presentation is crystal clear :)
I think than before this shift the pronouciation sounded veeery french. actually if we read english with french vowels pronunciation, it resembles the previous english pronunciation a lot :)
do you think it was due to the french kings period?
A very valuable content!
Is not raising synonym with closing? The higher the tongue the less air can go through. So, why is the shift from /i:/ to /ai/ supposed to be a raising? Isn't /i:/ the most closed vowel of all? Same question with the shift from /u:/ to /ou/.
Hey! Going to enroll in university to obtain my Master's Degree in English. This may be very useful material :D Thanks a lot Mr. Handke!
Herr Professor, ich heiße Rama aus Indonesien. How did people say "What time is it (now)?" in Shakespearian English or Early Modern English? Is it "How late is it (now)?" or "How many hour is it? (cf. Ger. Wie spät ist es? Wie viel Uhr ist es? Du. Hoe laat is het?)
Vielen Dank, Herr Professor Handke!
Sie haben mir fuer die Vorbereitung meines Geschichte der Englischen Sprache Exams wirklich geholfen.
Planen Sie auch E-Vorlesungen ueber die Geschischte der Deutschen Sprache zu posten?
Noch vielen Dank und freundliche Gruesse aus Italien.
Thank you! I really love your explanation!
Great lecture and excellent presentation. thanks!
I'm sorry, is there any written text of this video lesson? I'd like to use this information in my school project.
I LOVE YOU. everything so clear. thank you!
Yes. I've also noticed this. In addition, another a vowel /au/ as in "mouse" and "house" is evolving where the first part of the diphthong has fronted giving /æu/ typical of modern London speech. In Cockney the second element is lowered giving /æa/ or continues it's evolution to /æə/ and monothongizing to /æ:/, this mirrors changes that occurred over 1600 years ago when Proto-Germanic /au/ became Anglo Saxon /ea/
Hello, as a Canadian I say "house" on it's second stage not first. Does this mean my accent is more conservative than others? Thank you.
Same! Born and raised in Northern Ontario.
I always fantasize about time traveling back to Middle Age Europe, specifically what is now the UK and Ireland. I would be so lost trying to communicate with these people, but I imagine once I got the vowel shifts down I'd be able to "pass" more easily. If I'm not burned at the stake before that, anyway. Loved this video! Great refresher of my linguistic anthropology class in college.
I will start like this, as an English person, I can see all the discrepancies in English pronunciation, but I accept them as normal.
I was born in Enfield, North London to parents from Staffordshire, and in turn who's parents came from Stafford via Bethnal Green (East London), Hull (Humberside), Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent) and Pruszcz (Swiecie, Poland).
I myself have lived in Enfield, Stoke-on-Trent, Liverpool and Boston Mass.(briefly).
Jag talar engelska, lite franska, lite tyska och lite svenska.
I am an incredibly good mimic of dialects and phonology in general. I'm also an incredibly good 'by ear' musician with perfect pitch.
Every time I have spoken to a native speaker, they always say that my pronunciation is perfect, even if my sentence structure and vocabulary isn't.
I have always wondered if the two are linked, that is; whether or not I can understand it, I can still mimic the sounds, because I can also mimic the sounds in music too?
One big thing for me is that I can mimic the sounds better if I can see it written down in latin script, if I can see how the words are formed, as my 'ability to mimic' also applies to Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese too, and I have been tested in mimicry to 'wows'.
Anyway, onwards to the point of me posting this!
My natural accent is what would be perceived as being 'English', but certainly not RP, and not dialectical. It's neutral and hard to locate, although I have been told that I sound 'posh'.
I frequently switch between dialects dependent upon whom I am talking to. I also find myself pronouncing things in Gen. Am. more and more frequently, just because of the prevalence of American television shows.
As a person who frequently vowel, consonant and even dialect shifts himself personally dependent on context, who isn't really 'from a place' other than England. I can actually see how the vowel changes occurred implicitly, and I can mimic them all perfectly.
Although my accent is incredibly muddled, the one thing I find that I still maintain in my natural pronunciation, my natural accent, is words such as dance, bath, path etc with the long (almost ar) a.
Whilst I am aware of every other change in my natural accent and dialect due to context, even the different pronunciations of 'u' (buck, book), for some reason that long 'a' pronunciation has always stuck with me, in any dialectical switch. In most cases it's what gives me away as being a(n English) southerner.
I find it strange that that one particular aspect of speech would stick with me, when seemingly everything else is always fluid.
Everywhere you have mentioned your family coming from uses long A in words, even Hull with an 'ar' noise. As I said above, West Country English is very odd and proper hard to mimic due to random sound slides and incredibly specific regional sounds (e.g Dorset pronounced by a person from Dorset as 'Darrsit' from a foreign ear, however in Devon it would be pronounced 'Derset' or something similar
Thank you. This is a wonderful lecture.
This helped me soooo much! Thank you!
Excellent lecture! Thank you!
Enlightening. Thank you so much for the lecture sir.
I think it's interesting how in modern day Cockney the long vowels /i:/ and /u:/ as in "beet" and "boot" are diphthongized to /əi/ and /əʊ/, mirroring the first stage of the GVS.