PRONUNCIATION CHANGE: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
175
English pronunciation in the fourteenth century
Middle English: Geoffrey Chaucer (1345-1400) ® Track 62
Whan that Aprille with hise shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in euery holt and heeth The tendre croppes and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne And smale fowules maken melodye That slepen al the nyght with open eye So priketh hem nature in hir corages Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages (from the Prologue to Canterbury Tales)
'Man Sat 'aipnl wi0 his '/u:ras 'soita 3a 'druxt of 'martf haG 'persad to: 3a 'ro:ta and 'ba:8ad 'e:vn Va?in in 'switf h'kuir af 'Mitf ver'tiu En'd3endard is 9a 'fluir Man 'zefirus 'eik wiG his 'sweita 'bre:G in'spiirad 'ha6 in 'eivn 'halt and 'he:G 8a 'tendar 'krappas and 8a 'jurjga 'sunna 'haG m 8a 'ram his 'halva 'kurs I'runna and 'sma:b 'fuilas 'maikan meb'dha 9at 'sle.'pan 'a:l 9a 'met wiG 'a:pan 'i:a sa: 'pnkaG 'hem nai'tiur m 'hir ku'ra:d3as 8an 'bingan 'folk to: 'ga:n an pilgn'ma:d3as (Adapted from Cruttenden 1994: 73-4)
Even though the grammar was somewhat different and certain vocabulary items like eek 'also' and holt 'wood' may strike us as strange, the Middle English of the fourteenth century was perfectly recognisable as the forerunner of the language we speak today.
As you can see from the transcription above, the basis of the modern consonant system was already present in Chaucer's day. The most noticeable differences were the existence of the voiceless velar and palatal fricatives [x 9] (spelt gh) in words like © droghte, nyght and the consistent use of voiceless /m/ in wfr-words (e.g. © whan or which). In addition, the English language is at this period rhotic. (You'll find all these features still present today in Scottish English varieties, which are the most conservative of modern regional accents. See Section C3.)
The fourteenth-century vowel system, however, would seem less familiar to us. Shortly after Chaucer's time, a massive change, known as the Great Vowel Shift, was to take place in the pronunciation of English vowels. Up till the fourteenth century, for example, many present-day fleece words (e.g. 0 sweete) had the vowel [e:], while goose words (e.g. © roote) were said as [o:]. Modern face words (like © Aprille, bathed) contained the [a:] vowel; mouth words (e.g. & flour 'flower') were pronounced