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Within each section, changes are in approximate chronological order.
'NOTE': In the following description, abbreviations are used as follows:

★ OE = Old English

★ PreOE = Pre-Old English

★ ME = Middle English

★ NE = Modern English

★ PG = Proto-Germanic

★ PrePG = Pre-Proto-Germanic

★ NWG = Northwest Germanic

★ OHG = Old High German

★ MHG = Middle High German

★ NHG = Modern German

★ Goth = Gothic

★ PN = Proto-Norse

★ ON = Old Norse

★ OS = Old Saxon

★ PIE = Proto-Indo-European
The time periods for many of the following stages are extremely short due to the extensive population movements occurring during the early AD period, which resulted in rapid dialect fragmentation:

★ The migration of the Goths from southeast Sweden to the Baltic Sea area around AD 1, followed by the migration to southeast Romania around AD 200. (Later migrations carried the Ostrogoths eastward to the Crimea area in modern Ukraine, and carried the Visigoths westward to Spain.)

★ The migration of the High German ancestors southward, starting around AD 260, and renewed in the 5th century AD.

★ The migration of the Anglo-Saxons westward into Britain, starting around AD 450.
==Late Proto-Germanic period (c. AD 0–200)==
This includes changes in late Proto-Germanic, up to the appearance of Proto-West-Germanic c. AD 200:

★ Early i-mutation: is raised to when an or follows in the next syllable.

★
★ This occurs before deletion of any unstressed vowels; hence PIE > PG > > Goth "(he) carries".

★
★ The produced by this change can itself trigger later i-mutation. Hence WG > > OE "(he) carries".

★ a-mutation: is lowered to when a non-high vowel follows in the next syllable.

★
★ This is blocked when followed by a nasal followed by a consonant, or by a cluster with in it. Hence PG > OE/NE ''gold'', but PG > OE ''gyldan'' > NE ''gild''.

★
★ This produces a new phoneme , due to inconsistent application and later loss of unstressed and .

★ Loss of before , with nasalization and compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel.

★
★ The nasalization was eventually lost, but remained through the Ingvaeonic period.

★
★ Hence PrePG > PG > OE ''þencan'' > NE ''think'', but PrePG > PG > > OE > NE ''thought''.

★ Loss of final , with nasalization (eventually lost) of the preceding vowel. Hence PrePG > PG > PN > WG "day (acc. sg.)".

★ Pre-nasal raising: > before nasal + consonant. PrePG > PG > > OE ''bindan'' > NE ''bind'' (Latin ).

★
★ This post-dated lost of before .

★
★ This was later extended in PreOE times to vowels before all nasals; hence OE ''niman'' "take" but OHG ''neman''.

★ > (c. AD 100). The Elder Futhark of the Proto-Norse language still contain different symbols for the two sounds.

★ Vowels in unstressed syllables were reduced or eliminated. The specifics are quite complex and occurred as a result of many successive changes, with successive stages often happening hundreds of years after the previous stage. Some specifics of the initial stage:

★
★ Final-syllable short vowels inherited from Proto-Germanic were generally deleted. Hence Goth "(he) carries" < PG (see above).

★
★
★ This operated universally only in words of three syllables or more. In words of two syllables, final-syllable and were deleted, but and were unaffected following a short syllable (i.e. one with a short vowel followed by a single consonant.) Hence PG > Goth ''dags'' "day (nom. sing.)" (OE ''dæg''), PIE > PG > Goth ''wáit'' "(I) know" (OE ), PIE > PG > Goth "wáit" "(he) knows" (OE ); but PIE > PG > Goth ''sunus'' "son (nom. sing.)" (OE ''sunu''), PIE > PG > Goth ''faíhu'' "cattle (nom. sing.)" (OE ''feohu''), PIE > PG > > OHG ''wini'' "friend (nom. sing.)" (OE ''wine''), PIE > PG > PreOE > OE "foot (dat. sing.)".

★
★
★ Final-syllable and were protected in words of two syllables by following and . Hence PG > NE ''father''; PG > Goth ''stáinans'' "stone (acc. pl.)".

★
★
★ Final-syllable and in two-syllable words were still present in Proto-Norse. PN , Goth ''dags'' "day (nom. sg.)". PN , Goth ''dag'' "day (acc. sg.)".

★
★ Final-syllable long vowels were shortened.

★
★
★ But final-syllable becomes in NWG, in Gothic. Hence PG > early OE ''beru'' "(I) carry", but Goth ''baíra''; PG > OE ''giefu'' "gift (nom. sg.)", but Goth ''giba''.

★
★ Middle-syllable vowels of all types were unchanged; likewise in monosyllables, since they were stressed.

★
★ "Extra-long"' vowels were shorted to long vowels. There is a great deal of argument about what is exactly going on here.

★
★
★ The traditional view is that a circumflex accent arose (as in Ancient Greek) when two adjacent vowels were contracted into a single long vowel in a final syllable. This circumflexed vowel then remained long when other long vowels shortened.

★
★
★ A newer view holds that "overlong" (tri-moraic) vowels arose from the contraction of two vowels, one of which was long. Furthermore, final-syllable long vowels remained long before certain final consonants ( and ).

★
★
★ The reason why such theories are necessary is that some final-syllable long vowels are shortened, while others remain. Nominative singular shortens, for example; likewise first singular < ; while genitive plural < remains long. Both of the above theories postulate an overlong or circumflex ending in the genitive plural arising in the vocalic (PIE and , PG and ) declensions, arising from contraction of the vocalic stem ending with the genitive plural ending.

★
★
★ Other examples of vowels that remain long are ''a''-stem and ''ó''-stem nominative plural < early PIE and ; PrePG ablative singular , (Gothic "whither", ''undarō'' "under"); -stem dative singular PG > Goth ''gibái'' "gift" (but -stem dative singular PG > Goth ''staina'' "stone").
==West Germanic period (c. AD 200–400)==
This includes changes up through the split of Ingvaeonic and High German (c. AD 400):

★ Unstressed diphthongs were monophthongized. > , > .

★
★ Results were different in Gothic. Diphthongs remained except for absolutely final diphthongs stemming from PIE short diphthongs, which became short .

★
★ Hence PIE > PG > Goth ''sunáus'', but > PWG > OE ''suna'' "son (gen. sing.)"; PIE > PG > > Goth ''nimái'', but > PWG > OE ''nime'' "(he) takes (subj.)"; PIE (loc.?) > PG > Goth ''staina'', but > PWG > OE "stone (dat. sing.)"; PIE (loc.?) > PG > Goth ''gibái'', but > PWG > OE ''giefe'' "gift" (dat. sing.).

★ becomes .

★ Elimination of word-final .

★
★ Note that this change must have occurred before rhoticization, as original word-final did not become .

★
★ But it must have occurred after the North-West-Germanic split , since word-final was not eliminated in Old Norse, instead merging with .

★ Rhoticization: > .

★
★ This change also affected Proto-Norse; but in Proto-Norse, the date and nature are contested. and were still distinct in the Danish and Swedish dialect of Old Norse, as is testified by distinct runes. ( is normally assumed to be a rhotic fricative in this language, but there is no actual evidence of this.)

★ West Germanic Gemination of consonants except , when preceded by a short vowel and followed by .

★ OE nominative plural (ME ), OS nominative plural may be from original accusative plural (rather than original nominative plural ; cf. ON nominative plural ), following Ingvaeonic nasalization/loss of nasals before fricatives.
==Ingvaeonic and Proto-Anglo-Frisian period (c. AD 400–475)==
This includes changes from c. AD 400 up through the split of the Anglo-Frisian languages from Ingvaeonic, followed by the split of pre-Old English from pre-Old Frisian (c. AD 475). The time periods for these stages are extremely short due to the migration of the Anglo-Saxons westward through Frisian territory and then across the English Channel into Britain, around AD 450.

★ Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law: Loss of nasals before fricatives, with compensatory lengthening. Hence PG > NHG ''Mund'' but OE , NE ''mouth''.

★
★ An intermediate stage was a long nasal vowel, where nasal > . PIE > PG > OE "tooth". (NHG ''Zahn'' < OHG ''zant''.)

★ Development of new - distinction through Anglo-Frisian brightening and other changes:

★
★ Fronting of to (generally, unless followed).

★
★ Fronting of to (unless followed by a geminate, by a back vowel in the next syllable, or in certain other cases). Hence OE ''dæg'' "day", plural ''dagas'' "days" (dialectal NE "dawes"; compare NE "dawn" < OE ''dagung'' ). Gothic ''dags'', plural .

★
★ Change of to . PG > OE > NE ''stone''.
==Old English period (c. AD 475–900) ==
This includes changes from the split between Old English and Frisian (c. AD 475) up through historic early West Saxon of AD 900:

★ Breaking of front vowels

★
★ Most generally, before , , + consonant, + consonant (assumed to be velar , in these circumstances), but exact conditioning factors vary from vowel to vowel

★
★ Initial result was a falling diphthong ending in , but this was followed by diphthong height harmonization, producing short , , from short , , , long , , from long , , . (Written ''ea'', ''eo'', ''io'', where length is not distinguished graphically.)

★
★ Result in some dialects, for example Anglian, was back vowels rather than diphthongs. West Saxon ''ceald''; but Anglian ''cald'' > NE ''cold''.

★ and were lowered to and between 800 and 900 AD.

★ By the above changes, was fronted to and then modified to by diphthong height harmonization.

★
★ PG > OE "joy" (cf. NE ''dream'', NHG ''Traum''). PG > OE > NE ''death'' (Goth , NHG ''Tod''). PG > OE > NE ''eye'' (Goth , NHG ''Auge'').

★ was palatalized to in almost all circumstances. PG > NE ''ship'' (cf ''skipper'' < Dutch ''schipper'', where no such change happened). PG > OE ''scyrte'' > NE ''shirt'', but > ON ''skyrt'' > NE ''skirt''.

★ , , were palatalized to , , in certain complex circumstances, described in detail on the Old English page.

★
★ This change, or something similar, also occurred in Frisian.

★ Back vowels were fronted when followed in the next syllable by or , by i-mutation (c. 500 AD).

★
★ i-mutation affected all the Germanic languages except for Gothic, although with a great deal of variation. It appears to have occurred earliest, and to be most pronounced, in the Schleswig-Holstein area (the home of the Anglo-Saxons), and from there to have spread north and south.

★
★ This produced new front rounded vowels , , , . and were soon unrounded to and , respectively.

★
★ All short diphthongs were mutated to , all long diphthongs to . (This interpretation is controversial. These diphthongs are written ''ie'', which is traditionally interpreted as short , long .)

★
★ Late in Old English (c. AD 900), these new diphthongs were simplified to and , respectively.

★
★ The conditioning factors were soon obscured (loss of whenever it had produced gemination, lowering of unstressed ), phonemicizing the new sounds.

★ More reductions in unstressed syllables:

★
★ became .

★
★ Germanic high vowel deletion eliminated and when following a heavy syllable.

★ Palatal diphthongization: Initial palatal , , trigger spelling changes of ''a'' > ''ea'', ''e'' > ''ie''. It is disputed whether this represents an actual sound change or merely a spelling convention indicating the palatal nature of the preceding consonant (written ''g'', ''c'', ''sc'' were ambiguous in OE as to palatal , , and velar or , , , respectively).

★
★ Similar changes of ''o'' > ''eo'', ''u'' > ''eo'' are generally recognized to be merely a spelling convention. Hence WG > OE ''geong'' > NE "young"; if ''geong'' literally indicated an diphthong, the modern result would be
★ ''yeng''.

★
★ It is disputed whether there is Middle English evidence of the reality of this change in Old English.

★ Initial became in late Old English.

Contents

Up through Chaucer's English (c. AD 900–1400)

Up to Shakespeare's English (c. AD 1400–1600)

Up to the American/British split (c. AD 1600–1725)

After 1900

See also

References

Up through Chaucer's English (c. AD 900–1400)

★ Vowels were lengthened before , , , , probably also , , , when not followed by a third consonant.

★
★ This probably occurred around AD 1000.

★
★ Later on, many of these vowels were shortened again; but evidence from the Ormulum shows that this lengthening was once quite general.

★
★ Remnants persist in the Modern English pronunciations of words such as ''child'' (but not ''children'', since a third consonant follows), ''field'' (plus ''yield'', ''wield'', ''shield''), ''climb'', ''find'' (plus ''mind'', ''kind'', ''bind'', etc.), ''fiend'', ''found'' (plus ''hound'', ''bound'', etc.).

★ Vowels were shortened when followed by two or more consonants, except when lengthened as above.

★
★ This occurred in two stages, the first stage affecting only vowels followed by three or more consonants.

★ Inherited height-harmonic diphthongs were monophthongized by the loss of the second component, with the length remaining the same.

★ and became and .

★ and merged into .

★ and were unrounded to and .

★ became or , depending on surrounding vowels.

★ New diphthongs formed from vowels followed by or (including from former ).

★
★ Length distinctions were eliminated in these diphthongs.

★
★ Diphthongs also formed by the insertion of a glide or (after back and front vowels, respectively) preceding .

★
★ Many diphthong combinations soon merged.

★ Trisyllabic laxing: Shortening of stressed vowels when two syllables followed.

★
★ This results in pronunciation variants in Modern English such as ''divine'' vs ''divinity'' and ''south'' vs. ''southern'' (OE ''súðerne'').

★ Middle English open syllable lengthening: Vowels were usually lengthened in open syllables (13th century), except when trisyllabic laxing would apply.

★ Remaining unstressed vowels merged into .

★ Initial clusters , , were reduced by loss of .

★ Voiced fricatives became independent phonemes through borrowing and other sound changes.

★ before back vowel becomes ; becomes .

★
★ Modern English ''sword'', ''answer'', ''lamb''.

★
★ in ''swore'' is due to analogy with ''swear''.

Up to Shakespeare's English (c. AD 1400–1600)

★ Loss of most remaining diphthongs.

★
★ (and former , merged into in Early Middle English) became before the Great Vowel Shift.

★
★ (and former , merged into in Early Middle English) became and became after the shift causing the long mid mergers.

★
★ became after the shift.

★
★ The dew-new merger: and /iu/ merger, and they then become after the shift.

★
★ The joy-point merger: and /oi/ merge, so that ''point'' and ''joy'' now have the same vowel.

★
★ The rein-rain merger: /ai/ and /ei/ merge, so that ''rain'' and ''rein'' are now homonyms.

★
★ The dew-duke merger: /y/ and /iu/ merge, so that ''dew'' and ''duke'' now have the same vowel.

★
★ remained.

★
★ A few regional accents, including some in Northern England, East Anglia, South Wales, and even Newfoundland, monophthongization has not been complete, so that pairs like ''pane''/''pain'' and ''toe''/''tow'' are distinct. (Wells 1982, pp. 192–94, 337, 357, 384–85, 498)

★ (written ''gh'') lost in most dialects causing the taut-taught merger.

★ Great Vowel Shift; all long vowels raised or diphthongized.

★
★ , , become , , , respectively.

★
★ , become , , respectively.

★
★ , become and , later and .

★
★ New developed from old (see above).

★
★ Note that , , , effectively rotated in-place.

★
★ , are shifted again to , in Early Modern English, causing merger of former with ; but the two are still distinguished in spelling as ''ea'', ''ee''.

★ Loss of in final syllables.

★ Initial cluster loses first element; but still reflected in spelling.

★ /kn/ reduces to /n/ in most dialects, causing the not-knot merger.

★ /wr/ reduces to /r/ in most dialects, causing the rap-wrap merger.

★ Doubled consonants reduced to single consonants.

Up to the American/British split (c. AD 1600–1725)

★ At some preceding time after Old English, all become .

★
★ Evidence from Old English shows that, at that point, the pronunciation occurred only before a consonant.

★
★ Scottish English has consistently.

★ The foot-strut split: Except in northern England, splits into (inconsistently after labials), as in ''put'', (otherwise), as in ''cut''.

★ Ng coalescence: Reduction of in most areas produces new phoneme .

★ Palatalization of , , , produces , , , and new phoneme (for example ''measure'', ''vision'').

★
★ These combinations mostly occurred in borrowings from French and Latin.

★
★ Pronunciation of ''-tion'' was from Old French , thus becoming .

★ Long vowels inconsistently shortened in closed syllables. (Modern English ''head'', ''breath'', ''bread'', ''blood'', etc.)

★ The meet-meat merger: ''Meet'' and ''meat'' become homonyms in most accents.

★ Changes affect short vowels in many varieties before an at the end of a word or before a consonant

★
★ as in ''start'' and as in ''north'' are lengthened.

★
★ , and merge, hence most varieties of Modern English have the same vowel in each of ''fern'', ''fir'' and ''fur''.

★
★ Also affects vowels in derived forms, so that ''starry'' no longer rhymes with ''marry''.

★
★ Scottish English unaffected.

★ , as in ''cat'' and ''trap'', fronted to in many areas.

★
★ But backed, rounded, and lengthened to before syllable-final (that is, velarized) (). Modern English ''tall'', ''talk'', ''bald'', ''salt'', etc. But in ''-alm'', in ''-alf''.

★
★ New phoneme develops from (''calm'' ) and in certain other words, for example ''father'' .

★
★ Most varieties of northern English English, Welsh English and Scottish English retain in ''cat'', ''trap'' etc.

★ Loss of in , , (see above).

★ The pane-pain merger: The words ''pane'' and ''pain'' become homophones in most accents.

★ The toe-tow merger: The words ''toe'' and ''tow'' become homophones in most accents.



★ The lot-cloth split: in some varieties, lengthening of before voiced velars (, ) (American English only) and voiceless fricatives (, , ). Hence American English ''long, log, loss, cloth, off'' with (except in dialects with the cot-caught merger).

== After American/British split, up to the 20th century (c. AD 1725–1900)==

★ Split into rhotic and non-rhotic accents: loss of syllable-final in some varieties, especially of English English, producing new centering diphthongs (''square''), (''near''), (''force''), (''cure''), and highly unusual phoneme (''nurse'').


★ The father-bother merger: North American English merger of as in ''lot'', ''bother'' with as in ''father''; result is .

★
★ Exceptions are accents in Eastern New England (such as the Boston accent) and New York-New Jersey English. (Wells 1982, pp. 245–47)

★
★ Unrounding of EME is found also in Norwich, the West Country and in Hiberno-English, but apparently with no phonemic merger. (Wells 1982, pp. 339–40, 419)


★ The trap-bath split: southern English English inconsistently becomes before , , and or followed by another consonant.

★
★ Hence RP has ''pass, glass, grass, class'' with but ''mass, crass'' with . (All six words rhyme in most American English, Scottish English and northern English English.)

★ Reduction of and to , causing ''whine'' and ''wine'' to be homophones, in most varieties of English English; also, regionally, in American English.

★ American and Australian English flapping of and to in some circumstances.

★
★ Generally, between vowels (including syllabic , and ), when the following syllable is completely unstressed.

★
★ But not before syllabic in American English, for example ''cotton'' .

★ Happy tensing (the term is from Wells 1982): final lax becomes tense in words like ''happ'y'''.

★ Line-loin merger: merger between the diphthongs and .

After 1900

Some of these changes are in progress.

★ æ-tensing: the diphthongization of to in some varieties of American English.

★ Bad-lad split: the lengthening of to in some words, found especially in Australian English .

★ Lock-loch merger: the replacement of with among some younger Scottish English speakers from Glasgow[1], [2].

★ Pin-pen merger: the raising of to before nasal consonants; originated in Southern American English and is spreading rapidly .

See also

★ English language

★ History of the English language

★ English phonology

★ Phonological history of English consonants

★
★ English consonant cluster reductions

★ Phonological history of English vowels

★
★ Phonological history of English short A

★
★ Phonological history of English low back vowels

★
★ Phonological history of English high back vowels

★
★ Phonological history of English high front vowels

★
★ English-language vowel changes before historic r

★
★ English-language vowel changes before historic l

★ Scots Vowel Length Rule

★ Phonological history of the Scots language

References

★ [ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext97/bwulf10.txt Project Gutenberg's Beowulf translation by Francis Gummere]

★ Accents of English, John C. Wells, , , Cambridge University Press, 1982, ISBN 0-521-22919-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-24224-X (vol. 2), ISBN 0-521-24225-8 (vol. 3)