<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 07 July 2008 - Volume 02<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
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<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Travis Bemann</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:tabemann@gmail.com">tabemann@gmail.com</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Phonology" 2008.07.06 (05) [E]<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="Ih2E3d">
> From: Ivison dos Passos Martins <<a href="mailto:ipm7d@OI.COM.BR">ipm7d@OI.COM.BR</a>><br>
> Subject: Great Vowel Shift<br>
><br>
> Hi,<br>
><br>
> I have been trying to find a dialect or maybe a language which hasn't<br>
> been totally affected by the Great Vowel Shift. This would probably help<br>
> to know approximately how Old English sounded. Long vowels shifted. So the<br>
> word gód in OE (which rhymed with modern low) now sounds /gʊd/.<br>
><br>
> An old Dutch priest friend of mine who lived here told me that some<br>
> dialects have a different pronunciation for boek, shoe, and other words<br>
> where oe would normally sound as modern /u/. Unfortunately he doesn't live<br>
> here any more. And he said there were also dialects which had words such<br>
> win /ween/ for wine 'Wijn". Which dialect has kept much of the ancient<br>
> pronunciation without been affected by the Great Vowel Shift? Can we find<br>
> such behavior in german dialects or even English dialects?<br>
><br>
> Another question:<br>
><br>
> Take the word goed, which sounded /go:d/ in old Dutch and the word koe,<br>
> for instance– Am I right if I say that they only came to sound the same<br>
> [oe - /u:/] because of the Great Vowel shift?<br>
<br>
</div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">For starters, there is no unified Germanic "Great Vowel Shift", the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
term referring only to such sound shifts in Anglic dialects (which had</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
their own local variations). While there has been similar vowel shifts</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
in other Germanic languages, such as in many High German and Low</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Franconian dialects and in Norwegian and Swedish dialects, their</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
similarity to said shifts in Anglic dialects are only coincidental.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
For starters, the shifts in High German and Low Franconian involved an</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
early breaking of /e:/ of certain origins (which may have actually</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
originally been /ea/) to /ea/ (if it were not already that), /ia/, and</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
eventually /i@/. There was a similar early breaking of /o:/ to /ua/ or</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
/uo/ and eventually /u@/; thanks to umlaut, there also arose /y@/ at</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
some point along the way. These steps are very much different from the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
course of events that occurred with the Great Vowel Shift in Anglic</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
dialects, and thus show how the similarity of the two were only</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
coincidental. Much later, there were two sets of changes which</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
occurred in many but by no means all High German and Low Franconian</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
dialects. One of these changes was the monophthongization of /i@/,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
/u@/, and /y@/ as /i(:)/, /u(:)/, and /y(:)/; this did not happen in</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
most Upper German dialects. The other of these changes was the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
diphthongization of /i:/, /y:/, and in High German /u:/ as (generally</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
closing) diphthongs; this did not happen in West Flemish, Zeelandic,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
or Alemannic. Hence the actual results that appeared were quite</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
similar to those with the Great Vowel Shift in Anglic, and yet the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
actual path taken to such was very different from that in Anglic.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
In the case of most Norwegian and Swedish dialects, a similar but far</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
more limited shift occurred. The first was the centralization or</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
fronting of /u:/ (along with /u/), similar to such in Low Franconian.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
After that, /o:/ and later Old Norse /Q:/ (early Old Norse /A:/ and</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
/Q:/) were shifted upwards, so they became /u:/ and /o:/ respectively;</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
there likely was an intermediate diphthongal step in most dialects,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
due to such now often being narrow diphthongs and due to diphthongs</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
being still attested for such in some North Germanic dialects. Mind</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
you that there actually is a wide range of internal variation in the</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
treatment of Old Norse long vowels in North Germanic dialects, as</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
shown by the likes of the Setesdal dialect and Elfdalian, which have</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
general diphthongization of non-low Old Norse long vowels; the seeming</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
homogeneity of the treatment of such in modern Norwegian and Swedish</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
largely being an artifact of relatively recent dialect loss.<br><br>----------<br><br></span><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="2"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>>
<br>
Subject: Phonology<br><br>Thanks a lot for this erudite summary, Travis.<br><br>For the sake of "completion," would you be so kind as to explain how Low Saxon, Frisian and Scots fit into the scheme of things?<br>
<br>Scots (which is Anglic), for instance, did not participate in the diphthongization of [u:] (e.g. <i>house</i> ~ <i>hoose </i>[hu(:)s]), and it participated in the diphthongization of [i:] only "partly" (or "half of the way"): [@I] ~ [@i]. The latter "half-way" shift has begun again in Modern Australian English where high monophthongs have begun developing into rising dipthongs: [i:] > [Ii] ~ [@i] (as in "she", "beat" and "me"), [u:] > [Uw] ~ [@u_"] (as in "do", "loop", "pool")</span></font><font style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" size="2"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">, with lower onsets after labials. I think it's kind of interesting that the same shift appears to occur twice.<br>
<br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron</span></font><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">