Unit 21 Middle English Phonetic Changes

1. Consonants

1. OE [] (the letter g) > ME [w]: OE boga, dragan > ME bowe, drawen. Cf. Rus. “eгo”, where [] > [в].

2. Initial [h] was dropped before “r, l, n”: hring > ME ring.

3. Before [w] the sound [h] remained longer especially in the North where OE “hw-” came to be written “quh-“ or “qwh-”.

In the South [h] was dropped before [w] in the Middle English language, and the OE combination “hw” was replaced by ME “wh”.

OE hwæt	→ME “quhat” [xwat] (in the North)
	↘ME “what” [wat] (in the South)

4. A very important change was the vocalization of [j] and [w] after vowels, which brought about the appearance of new diphthongs:

[j] > [i] (the letters i, y): OE dæg, segl > ME dai/day, seil >ModE day, sail.

[w] > [u] (the letters w, u): OE snāw > ME snōu > ModE snow; OE dēaw > ME dēw/dēu > ModE dew.

5. Final [-n] was often lost in unstressed syllables:

OE bringan > ME bringen > bringe > ModE bring

6. Medial [v] was often dropped before consonants:

OE hæfde > ME had

7. The palatalization of [k’], [g’], [sk’]: [k’] > [ʧ], [g’] > [ʧ], [sk’] > [ʃ].

2. Unstressed Vowels

The weakening of unstressed vowels became much more intensive in Middle English, esp. in the Northern dialects, owing to Scandinavian influence. Both Old English and Old Scandinavian had many features in common, which made the process of communication easier. It often occurred that the root of a word and its meaning were nearly the same in both languages, while its endings differed:

OSc sunr -	OE sunu -	ModE son
OSc tīme -	OE tīma -	ModE time

Such words were, naturally, freely used by the representatives of both peoples in their conversations. This accelerated the weakening of the unstressed endings.

Most unstressed vowels were levelled and reduced to the neutral vowel [ə] (the letter e):

OE standan >	ME standen >	ModE stand
OE sunu >	ME sone >	ModE son

The unstressed OE [i] often remained in ME:

OE englisc > ME english > ModE English

In unaccented prefixes OE [o] and [u] mostly remained unchanged; [æ] and [ā] became [a]; [e] usually became [i]:

OE fulfyllan >		ME fulfille(n) >		ModE fulfill
	ārisan >		arise(n) >		arise(n)
	beforan >		bifore(n) >		before

In certain phonetic situations, esp. between [r] or [i] and [w] there appeared new unstressed vowels:

OE folgian > ME folwen > folowe(n) > ModE follow

Unstressed long vowels were shortened in ME:

OE – dōm (wīsdōm) > ME – dom (wisdom).

The OE preposition ‘tō’ > ME ‘to’.

The unstressed OE numeral ‘ān’ > ME ‘an’, the indefinite article.