Many languages have undergone vowel shifts, but the major changes of the English vowel shift occurred within the relatively short space of a century or two, quite a sudden and dramatic shift in linguistic terms. In fact, the shift probably started very gradually some centuries before 1400, and continued long after 1700 (some subtle changes arguably continue even to this day). ![]() ![]() Great Vowel Shift | The English Renaissance | Printing Press and Standardization | The Bible | Dictionaries and Grammars | Golden Age of English Literature | William Shakespeare | International TradeĪ major factor separating Middle English from Modern English is known as the Great Vowel Shift, a radical change in pronunciation during the 15th, 16th and 17th Century, as a result of which long vowel sounds began to be made higher and further forward in the mouth (short vowel sounds were largely unchanged). The History of English - Early Modern English (c.
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