I learned about another vowel shift yesterday: the (US) "Northern Cities Vowel Shift" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_Engli...
Great Vowel Shift
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Re: Great Vowel Shift
#12[deleted]
Re: Great Vowel Shift
#13Of course, when I first heard of this, it was referred to as the “Great Vowel Movement.”
Re: Great Vowel Shift
#14Canadian English is going through a vowel shift right now. The shift is much smaller than the great vowel shift, but still notable.
https://www.macleans.ca/society/life/in-the-midst-of-the-can...
Re: Great Vowel Shift
#15Any non-native English speakers feeling like: So is that why we need to suffer a lingua franca that does not map 1:1 spoken and written?
This must be the world's largest tech debt. :)))
Re: Great Vowel Shift
#16Here's what it'd look like (taken from Reddit):
"The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas."
Re: Great Vowel Shift
#17The article doesn't explain what evidence we have of this. How do we know this happened?
It's a good question. It turns out that linguists can discover quite a lot about how some languages were pronounced before audio recording existed. I got some insight into this by reading the first chapter of an academic book on the pronounciation of Latin where there was a summary of the different kinds of evidence that can be used. Unfortunately I don't have the list to hand so the following is just my random brainstorming:
* the pronunciation of descendent languages, especially when there are lots of them, or lots of different dialects
* comparison with languages that have a common ancestor
* how words were transcribed from one language into another
* how words were changed when adopted from one language into another
* what spelling mistakes were made, particularly in cases where the writer was less educated or being less careful, such as graffiti
* rhyme and metre in poetry
* in literature, cases where someone is mocked for their pronunciation
* puns and wordplay in literature
* and of course cases where ancient authors have written more or less explicitly about pronunciation, either descriptively or prescriptively
Re: Great Vowel Shift
#18If anyone finds this subject interesting, I recommend The History of English Podcast: https://historyofenglishpodcast.com .
A a great podcast that has started a personal hobby/interest in linguistics and etymology.
I love that history is able break your notion of what is or isn't possible and this podcast is great at that; it repeatedly shows how no language is set in stone, it is a human construct, and how languages are interrelated.
Re: Great Vowel Shift
#19Here's what it'd look like (taken from Reddit): "The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English…
I dont vant tu teik saids, but German haz diklention und konjugation, vich maiks it a suboptimal lingua franka. Not tu mention meni iregular verbs.
Mai vot gos tu som nordik languag like Svedish.
Re: Great Vowel Shift
#20Here's what it'd look like (taken from Reddit): "The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English…
The Economist had a recent article on why spelling reform never really gains traction. Basically, those in power to change it have no incentive to do so: https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2021/04/10/why-its-...