The Great Vowel Shift and the History of Britain.
Summary
TLDRThis episode explores the fascinating history behind the English pronunciation of 'tomato' and 'potato,' highlighting the Great Vowel Shift's impact on the language. It delves into how historical events, such as the Black Death and the Hundred Years War, influenced language changes, emphasizing the unique transformation of English from Middle to Modern English.
Takeaways
- 🍅 The pronunciation of 'tomato' has been a topic of debate, highlighted by the song from the 1937 movie 'Shall We Dance', which humorously points out the differences in pronunciation.
- 📚 The Great Vowel Shift (GVS) is a significant historical linguistic event that transformed the pronunciation of English, affecting long vowels and some consonants, and is considered a transition from Middle English to Modern English.
- 🏰 The GVS is believed to have occurred between the mid-14th and 18th centuries, with some scholars suggesting it may have started earlier or lasted longer.
- 🌐 The GVS was not uniform across all regions of England, affecting different areas like Scotland, northern England, and southern England at different times and rates.
- 📜 The shift's exact nature and timing are still debated among scholars, but it had a profound impact on how long vowels were pronounced, making Middle English almost unintelligible to modern speakers.
- 📚 Evidence of the GVS can be inferred from rhymes in poetry, changes in spelling, and the pronunciation of words in personal correspondence, such as Elizabeth I's spelling of 'deep' as 'di PE'.
- 🌳 The Black Death in the 14th century led to significant population shifts and urban migration, which may have contributed to the mixing of dialects and the GVS.
- 🏰 The Norman Conquest and subsequent rule influenced the English language, with French becoming the language of the court and government, while English remained a primarily spoken, unregulated language.
- 🏛️ The Hundred Years War and the resulting resentment towards the French language may have influenced the pronunciation changes in English, as people sought to distance their speech from that of the enemy.
- 🌐 The GVS is unique to English and did not occur in other languages on the continent, making it a distinctive feature of English history and linguistic development.
Q & A
What is the main topic discussed in the script?
-The main topic discussed in the script is the history of the English language, particularly the Great Vowel Shift, and its impact on the pronunciation of words like 'tomato'.
What is the Great Vowel Shift (GVS)?
-The Great Vowel Shift (GVS) refers to a period of radical change in how the English language is spoken, occurring roughly between the mid-14th century and the 18th century. It affected the pronunciation of long vowels and some consonants, marking the transition from Middle English to Modern English.
Who coined the term 'Great Vowel Shift'?
-The term 'Great Vowel Shift' was coined by Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist, in his 1909 work 'A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles'.
How did the Great Vowel Shift affect the pronunciation of words?
-The Great Vowel Shift significantly changed the pronunciation of words with long vowels. For example, words that would have been pronounced with a long 'i' in Middle English, like 'bite', would have been pronounced differently in different regions and times, sometimes sounding like 'beat' or 'bot'.
What historical events contributed to the Great Vowel Shift?
-Factors contributing to the Great Vowel Shift include population migration, the mixing of regional dialects, the influence of French loanwords, and the impact of the Black Death. These events led to a significant transformation in the pronunciation of English words.
How did the Black Death impact the English language?
-The Black Death led to mass depopulation, which in turn caused people to migrate to cities, mixing different dialects and accents. This mixing of languages and the subsequent recovery of urban populations contributed to the changes in language that occurred during the Great Vowel Shift.
What role did the Norman Conquest play in the development of English dialects?
-After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the rulers of England primarily spoke French, and the language of the court and government was French. This led to the development of regional dialects in English, as the language was not regulated and was mainly a spoken language rather than a written one.
How did the Hundred Years War affect the English language?
-The Hundred Years War created a resentment towards the French language, as it was associated with the enemy. This led to an aversion to French and an overcorrection in the pronunciation of French-derived words, which may have contributed to the Great Vowel Shift.
Why is the pronunciation of 'tomato' different in different English-speaking regions?
-The pronunciation of 'tomato' as 'tomato' or 'tomahto' is influenced by historical and cultural factors, including the Great Vowel Shift and the influence of upper-class Englishmen in the 18th century who affected the pronunciation of certain words.
How can we understand the pronunciation changes that occurred during the Great Vowel Shift?
-We can understand the pronunciation changes through clues such as rhymes used by poets like Chaucer and Shakespeare, spellings in personal correspondence, and the study of historical documents like the Domesday Book. These sources provide insights into how words were pronounced before and after the Great Vowel Shift.
Outlines
🍅 The Great Vowel Shift and the Evolution of 'Tomato'
This paragraph delves into the historical pronunciation of 'tomato' and its connection to the Great Vowel Shift (GVS), a significant transformation in English pronunciation from the mid-14th to the 18th century. The GVS, which affected long vowels and some consonants, is highlighted as a key factor in the divergence of pronunciation between Middle English and Modern English. The paragraph references the Gershwin song 'You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato' to illustrate the cultural significance of language differences and discusses the historical events, such as the Black Death and the Hundred Years War, that may have contributed to the GVS.
🏰 The Impact of Historical Events on English Dialects and the GVS
The second paragraph explores how historical events, particularly the Black Death and the subsequent migration to cities, influenced the English language. It discusses the Norman conquest and its effects on English as a spoken language, leading to the development of regional dialects. The paragraph also examines the role of the French language in England, especially during the Hundred Years War, and how the shift in language was partly due to the mixing of English dialects with French loanwords. The discussion includes the idea that the GVS might have been a chain shift, where a small change in pronunciation could trigger a series of other changes.
📚 The Great Vowel Shift's Uniqueness to English and its Aftermath
This paragraph emphasizes the uniqueness of the GVS to the English language, contrasting it with other languages that did not undergo such a dramatic vowel shift. It discusses the irregular application of the GVS to English words and how it led to inconsistencies in spelling and pronunciation. The paragraph also touches on the standardization of spelling through the printing press and how it sometimes preserved old pronunciations that were no longer in use. The discussion concludes with the GVS's role in shaping the English language as a reflection of England's historical and cultural evolution.
🎤 The Cultural Relevance of Language Differences: Tomato vs. Tomahto
The final paragraph wraps up the discussion by returning to the cultural significance of language differences, exemplified by the pronunciation of 'tomato' and 'tomahto'. It suggests that the difference in pronunciation may have been an affectation of the 18th-century upper-class English and implies that such differences are not as important as they might seem, echoing the sentiment of the Gershwin song. The paragraph also invites viewers to engage with the content by liking, commenting, and subscribing, highlighting the interactive aspect of the video script.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Ketchup
💡Pronunciation
💡Great Vowel Shift (GVS)
💡Historical Events
💡Black Death
💡Norman Conquest
💡Anglo-Norman
💡Hundred Years War
💡Loanwords
💡Chain Shift
💡Standardization of Spelling
💡Cultural Identity
Highlights
The pronunciation of 'tomato' is a subject of historical linguistic interest due to its variations.
The Great Vowel Shift (GVS) was a period of radical change in English pronunciation between the mid-14th and 18th centuries.
The GVS was first described by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen and is a key example of the connection between historical events and language.
The GVS affected long vowels and some consonants, transitioning English from Middle to Modern English.
The exact nature of the GVS is still disputed among scholars, with variations in pronunciation changes over geography and time.
Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare would have had difficulty understanding each other due to the GVS.
The GVS can be partially understood through clues like rhymes in poetry and spelling in personal correspondence.
Elizabeth I's spelling provides evidence of the shift from Middle to Modern English pronunciation.
The reasons behind the GVS are perplexing, with factors such as population migration and the mixing of dialects being suggested.
The Black Death led to significant population movements and may have influenced the GVS.
The Hundred Years War and the resentment towards the French language might have contributed to the GVS.
The GVS is unique to English and did not occur in other Romance languages during the same period.
The pronunciation of 'tomato' as 'tomahto' was an affectation of 18th-century upper-class Englishmen in southern England.
The GVS and its effects on pronunciation are still evident in modern English, with some words having multiple pronunciations.
The GVS is a testament to the complex history of the English language and its development over time.
The history of 'tomato' and 'tomahto' reflects broader linguistic changes and cultural shifts in England.
Transcripts
recently we did an episode on ketchup
and of course today ketchup is mostly
made from tomatoes and that led a viewer
to send me a question about the English
pronunciation of the word tomato and
asked me well which one is correct and
that is a popular question because of a
song written by George and Ira Gershwin
for the 1937 Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers movie shall we dance with the
lyrics you say tomato and I say tomato
you say potato and I say potato let's
call the whole thing off in the the song
says a lot of things about class and
culture but the real point of the song
is that the difference is unimportant I
mean after all tomatoes and tomatoes are
the same thing but how tomato and tomato
came to be pronounced differently is an
interesting historical question because
history surprisingly affects language
and in the history of language a change
that would have changed the
pronunciation of the word tomato and
virtually the whole of the English
language stands out as a shining example
of the intimate connection between
historical events and the words that
describe them the period of the rapid
transformation of the pronunciation of
English that was called the great vowel
shift deserves to be remembered the
great vowel shift or gvs refers to a
period of radical change in how the
English language is spoken the shift
roughly occurred in England between the
mid 14th century in the 18th century
although some argue that it may have
started earlier and did later the term
itself was coined by Otto Jespersen a
Danish linguist and anglicized whose
focus at the time was on the history of
language Jesperson described the GPS in
his 1909 work a modern English grammar
on historical principles the GPS
represents the transition from middle
english to modern english and it mostly
affected the so called long vowels
although it affected some consonants as
well the description of exactly how it
occurred is still a matter of scholarly
disputed didn't occur evenly over either
geography or time that is to say that
affected
Scotland in northern England and
southern England differently and at
different times and it occurred in bits
and starts over a period of centuries
but while other languages have undergone
vowel shifts the significant
transformation and how English
was pronounced over just a few centuries
was well exceptional as to the actual
pronunciation differences I'll largely
leave that up to linguist to describe
but the shift significantly affected how
words with long vowels were pronounced
the word bite for example with a long I
would have in the Middle English of
southern England been pronounced like
the word beat whereas beat would have
been pronounced more like the word bade
which would have pronounced something
like bot and all that means that
Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare
would have had difficulty having a
conversation with each other
well we modern English speakers can read
Chaucer's Middle English and are usually
forced to some time in high school
Chaucer's pronunciation would have been
almost completely unintelligible to the
modern ear the English of William
Shakespeare after the great vowel shift
on the other hand would be accented but
quite understandable that of course
leaves the interesting question of how
we would know how these words were
pronounced differently since there's no
sound recording from the time and the
question is part of the reason that
there's still disagreement over exactly
how the gb/s occurred but it can be
divined from Clues such as what words
poets rind or playwrights used as pawns
Chaucer rhymed words that Shakespeare
did not Chaucer for example rhymed the
word daffy meaning you can't hear with
the word life which was then spelled ly
F today the words life and death don't
rhyme but in Chaucer's time they did
they were pronounced deef and lief
another example is how people spelled
words in personal correspondence
Elizabeth the first spelled deep di PE
and need an ID this indicates that by
her time words spelled with a E had
already at pronunciation from the a
sound of middle English to the long e
sound we use in modern English from Depp
and Ned to deep and need so her use of
the spelling of middle English where I
was pronounced e indicates the
pronunciation of early modern English
after the great vowel shift - there were
scholars at the time noting some of the
changes and some even proposed new
systems of spelling to represent the
changes those can help us understand how
the changes occurred but while the
question of how the shift occurred is
interesting the question of why is even
more perplexing and there's even less
agreement among scholars about that but
somehow history change
language what happened in England and
the approximately 160 years between
Geoffrey Chaucer's death and William
Shakespeare's birth that made it so that
to acknowledge masters of the English
language could not have understood each
other speaking their own version of
English
how did history transform language it's
a difficult question to answer there's
little agreement because scholars can't
even agree over when the great vowel
shift began one of the most significant
factors has been suggested to explain
the rapid shift in language was
population migration pronunciation
buried in medieval England where the
typical person never wandered farther
afield than a dozen miles from their
home areas developed dialects
essentially regional languages but
events in the 14th century drove greater
migration and especially congregation in
the cities which then brought together
people who had different accents and
dialects and the mixing of those changed
the language part of the reason goes
back to Norman rule after William the
Conqueror's victory in 1066 the rulers
of England primarily spoke French albeit
the more country-bumpkin Norman French
as opposed to Parisian French for the
following three hundred years the
language of the court and government was
French
while written language was mainly done
in Latin but some 95 percent of the
population still spoke English as the
Norman rulers Youth English as a low and
vulgar tongue it went unregulated and
was mainly a spoken language rather than
a written language combined with low
population mobility that led to the
development of regional dialects or at
least a further diversion from dialects
of Old English some linguists estimate
that a common person in England in the
12th century would not be able to
understand the English language spoken
just fifty miles away but in the 14th
century people moved the likely cause
was the black play the first known case
of the illness in England was a sailor
from Gascony in June of 1348 by December
the outbreak was estimated killed
between 40 and 60 percent of the
population the impacts of this mass
depopulation were profound changing
economics and culture but could it
change language the initial reaction to
the depopulation of the plague was for
people to Fleet locations with high
mortality rates like London but an
interesting study published last year
looking at data from medieval cities
found a surprising result this
the devastation of the plague and
periodic return of the illness urban
populations recovered to pre plague
populations by the 16th century further
research on abandoned rural villages and
deforestation suggests that rural
populations decreased over the same
period and took more than a century more
to return to the pre plague population
the result is counterintuitive
the general thought would be that places
harder hit by the pandemic would recover
more slowly both because their
population was harder head and because
people would be reticent to return to
high mortality areas instead the data
suggest that people moved from low
mortality areas in the country to high
mortality areas in the city the
conclusion is that factors such as
quality of land and human infrastructure
such as roads and trade routes affected
migration more than mortality rates as
the population decreased people move
from more marginal land and land with
fewer amenities to areas with better
agricultural land and more amenities the
finding support the idea that southeast
England including London saw a
significant increase in immigration from
the northern England following the
pandemic this conclusion is supported by
records that have been accumulated by
the universities of York and Sheffield
in England's immigrants database which
tracks emigration to England between
1330 and 1550 in the period following
the plague the resulting labor shortage
meant a demand for labour
thus conditions and wages were
relatively good compared to many places
in Europe that attracted immigrants from
the rest of the British Isles Northwest
Europe and even farther afield the
research suggests as many as one in
every hundred people in medieval England
was an immigrant the result is not just
a mixing of English dialects but of
foreign loanwords over much of the
period of the great vowel shift in
loanwords particularly French loanwords
or another part of the explanation
the Normans brought a huge number of
French words into the English language
thousands of them those French words in
pronunciations of course would transform
language for example names for animals
cow pig sheep although pronounced
differently in Middle English than
modern English came from English but the
names for their meat beef pork mutton
were derived from French courts of
justice were also conducted largely in
French so many Englishmen while still
primarily speaking English also learned
French but why would this mix of
languages cause a vowel shift hundreds
of years after the Norman Conquest
well the French used by the court
developed into a unique form called
anglo-norman the Normans became
increasingly anglicized over time Norman
Nobles became increasingly likely to
speak English as well as French the loss
of Normandy to philip ii of france and
1204 meant that Norman Nobles started
becoming more dependent upon their
English holdings and divorced from the
French Court and customs increasingly
the people in power were speaking
English but with a heavy French accent
and were speaking a version of French
that was highly influenced by English
and the people who were not in power
wanted to sound more like the people who
were in power because it was more
prestigious the effect of French
loanwords on English pronunciation was
further impacted by war with the French
the series of conflicts that would be
called the Hundred Years War began in
1337 the war itself might have impacted
language in a few ways for example
causing migration based on the
recruitment and movement of troops and
the number of Englishmen who spent time
on the continent fighting in the wars
but the war also created a resentment
towards the French language as the
language of the enemy Henry the fourth
who to post his nephew Richard ii in
1399 was the first English King for whom
English was his mother tongue and he
took his oath in English this new
aversion to French even as the
conversion of french-speaking Nobles to
english-speaking increase the use of
loanwords may have caused an
overcorrection when the pronunciation of
French derived words was changed to
sound less French this overcorrection
might explain why a language so
influenced by Romance languages ended up
being pronounced so differently from
them but this doesn't really explain why
the change was so massive well some
linguists think that that might be
explained by something called a chain
shift roughly speaking that means that a
small change might cause a change
somewhere else for example pronouncing a
vowel one way differently might require
them that another vowel be pronounced
differently so that the two don't sound
too much alike phonological systems tend
to naturally seek economy and symmetry
and well it's not as mechanistic as it
sounds what it means is that a small
shift might have driven a chain of
shifts that led to something large like
the great vowel shift one result of the
great vowel shift is that it partially
explains why English is so well
difficult spread more or less haphazard
over time in geography the great vowel
shift did not apply uniformly to all
relevant words for example the letter
combination spelled ei was pronounced a
in Middle English meek was met it went
through a phase or was pronounced a meet
would have been mate and then finally
the long e sound it has today meet along
with words like speak and being but some
words got stuck along the way met became
meet but stay which would originally
have been pronounced stack got stuck in
the middle at stake with words like
great didn't move along to become steek
and a few other words took another shift
to a diphthong or combined vowel sound
to make words like bear and swear in
Middle English those words would have
alright but in modern English that same
vowel combination is pronounced three
different ways it was roughly over the
same period that printing in England was
standardizing spelling in English some
of the new standardized Spelling's
missed the effects of the gb/s and thus
many words in english are not written as
they sound in Chaucer's time to e at the
end of words would have been pronounced
as with all consonants many of the
sounds have become silent in smoking
language but the letters were still
retained in printing in other cases word
spelling was changed and that obscured
the relationship between them and the
European languages from which they were
derived there's more confusion as
there's still many artifacts of middle
English for example the word Shire every
Britain will tell you that
Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire and
Bedfordshire are pronounced
Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire and Bedford
sure the reason is not laziness a
dialect it's that the pronunciation of
those names was set before the great
vowel shift when Shire would have been
pronounced Shearer those names are
literally artifacts of anyone's past and
speaking of England's past ween the
conquerors Domesday book from which
we've learned so much about England's
past is pronounced doomsday but spelled
Domesday do mes da why not because the
Normans couldn't spell but because dome
was pronounced doomed before the great
vowel shift and so the Norman King who
spoke French left us an artifact of
middle English
one of the most interesting things about
the great vowel shift is that it didn't
occur elsewhere on the continent I mean
all languages are subject to some amount
of vowel shift but the French language
for example hardly changed over the same
period even though the French faced the
same plague and the same war the great
vowel shift is an artifact of the
uniqueness of English history of Norman
Lords who spoke a bastardized form of
French and of a language of a population
that was considered so low class that
went unregulated only to rise again and
have to find its own path it's of a
language that is permeated by foreign
words whose foreign pronunciations at
some points were considered desirable
and at other points considered anathema
as the nation found its identity it
represents a period where England went
from a backwater vassal of the French to
a great nation in its own right of a
period when the people moved from
largely rural to much more urban it is a
language that is as complex as the
history of the English people so what
about tomato and tomahto
well Chaucer likely would have
pronounced that tomahto except that
tomatoes hadn't been introduced to
England in Chaucer's time Shakespeare
would have recognized what a tomato was
but he likely would have pronounced it
with the short a and called it a tomato
in in modern English it was pronounced
tomato for a very long time he was
nothing but an affectation of 18th
century upper-class Englishman in
southern England that turned chance
dance and Castle into Charles dolls and
Castle and turned tomato into tomahto
and like the song implies maybe that
difference isn't all that important and
we don't really have to call the whole
thing off I hope you enjoyed this
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