On the History of English Pronunciation

commentary

OE = Old English (c. 550 to c. 1250)

ME = Middle English (c. 1150 to c. 1470)

What did Middle-English sound like? Well, seeing that Middle-English is a dead language, and as there are no aural but only visual records of it (i.e. in the form of writing), we really don't know for sure. Yet English is a phonographic language and one way we can know is by looking at its spelling – a phonographic language is one whose letters match onto speech sounds, for example C gives us a /k/ sound, A gives us an /æ/ sound, and T a /t/ sound, such that when pronounced together we have the sound that represents

Of course, the relationship between thing to sound is completely arbitrary, as, indeed, each language terms this furry creature differently. Irrespective of this, with a word's spelling in English we usually have an idea of its sound. 

One of Chaucer's most
accurate portraits.

By looking at the works of one of the language's most celebrated poets, Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400), we can get a great idea of how the language was used and how it sounded in his period. Firstly, through the spelling of the works – perhaps the most obvious and direct way. Secondly, by looking at how words would rhyme then. Another method, 'comparative reconstruction', is also possible, which looks at how other related languages were functioning at that time. 

As mentioned English is phonographic. However, this phonographic writing system wasn't devised by Chaucer, nor in the ME period in which he wrote. These letters were developed centuries earlier from the Greek alphabet for the writing of Latin (observe the Greek words alhpa: A, and beta: B, and the Latin: alphabetum). During a time of Christianisation in England, Anglo-Saxon scribes were tasked with creating a Roman alphabet for the English language (i.e. to 'romanize' it; to use letters from the Latin spoken by the Romans). The scribes had been trained to write in Latin, thus, in adopting the alphabet for English, they sensibly maintained the same correspondences between sounds and letters. These letters have been handed down more or less unchanged (from OE through ME) to present-day English, and as a result, many of the consonants used by Chaucer have the same sounds today.

'Futhorc runes' are a slight adap-

tion for OE of an Anglo-Saxon-

Frisian writing system, this one

dying out c. 1000, in England.

Not all sounds were found in Latin, however. For example, the voiced 'th' sound we still use today /ð/ (this, other, smooth, mother), and the unvoiced /θ/ (thing, author, path). So they turned to the Germanic alphabet and its runes, which they were familiar with from their earlier use in Northern Europe and Scandinavia; an alphabet characterised by its angular letter shapes suited for carving on stone or wood. The letter they borrowed from such alphabet was 'thorn', appearing as  (formed today by letters TH).

Thorn fell out of use the in 16th century when it began to be written using curved strokes, thereby confusing it with the letter Y. Note mistakes in existing archaistic shop signs bearing 'ye olde…' (where 'the old…' is meant), and yet ye, with a Y, is actually an archaic plural form 'thou': e olde inn would be more correct, or authentic.

While consonants mightn't have changed a great deal, the same cannot be said for vowel sounds, and herein lies most of the doubt. By looking at the way Chuacer's words rhymed we get a glimpse at the differences in some of the ways the vowels sounded. Chaucer rhymed 'good' with 'blood', 'town' with 'region', and 'mice' with 'malice'. 'Good' and 'blood' had a round O sound, quite logically. Today we spell this sound generally with O-A as in 'boat', or, with E at the end as in 'vote'  (sometimes called the magic E). 'Town' and 'region' rhymed correctly according to the pronunciation of Chaucer's time: 'town' was actually spelt with a U, tun (as was house, mouse, down, how) and represented a long U sound as in 'goose'; 'region' was borrowed into English during a large-scale adoption of French and Latin vocabulary, and was sounded, in its French mediæevil period, with a long U sound, alike (stress on the second syllable). And so, in this way we can reconstruct Chaucer's vowel sounds with some confidence.  

Listen to a reading of Chaucer's Canterbery Tales here.

At some point during the 'great vowel shift' of the 16th century all of these sounds have changed into various diphthongs. Interestingly, this shift affected Scottish accents differently, so much that the Chuacerian pronunciation can still be found in Scotland today (listen here). The aspirated W in 'when', 'what', 'who', 'where', 'which' survived, principally, in Scottish pronunciation.

Note that while pronunciation, indeed, has changed quite a lot, spelling has remained relatively stable. Spelling has been codified in dictionaries and grammar books. Students are taught a standard, or a fixed spelling system. A standard as such did not exist in Chaucer's day, and as a result spellings differed from place to place, and between those of his contemporaries (John Gower, William Langland, and authors of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight). In the 15th century this changed with the birth of a standard, one which has mostly remained unchanged. 

Silent letters are relics of earlier pronunciations that have since changed. Such as the droppings of the letters in 'knight', 'gnaw', and 'comb'. This dropping of letters was not recorded in the standard. One good way we can know they were indeed pronounced is by looking at alliteration used in the poetry of these times. In addition to that, most other Germanic languages have retained pronunciation of the letters, such that, a little sound may be heard before the T in 'knight', for example (Germanic languages are a group of modern languages English is related to. Those are German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Danish, which were all once part of one language know as proto-germanic, of which no text survived). At length, by comparing the roots of these other languages, i.e. Old-English, Old-Norse, and Gothic, we can deduce what their common original must have been like and gain insights into how these related languages were functioning.

In fact, the spelling system of today, frustrating as it is for its non-native learners, is more valuable as a guide for the pronunciation of Chaucer's English, and useful for understanding mediævil English pronunciation, than it is to our own.

Prologue to The Summoner's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer

original text:                                           modern translation:

	This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle,	This friar boasts that he knows hell,
	And God it woot, that it is litel wonder;	And God knows that it is little wonder;
	Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder.	Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.
	For, pardee, ye han ofte tyme herd telle	For, by God, you have ofttimes heard tell
	How that a frere ravyshed was to helle	How a friar was taken to hell
	In spirit ones by a visioun;	In spirit, once by a vision;
	And as an angel ladde hym up and doun,	And as an angel led him up and down,
	To shewen hym the peynes that the were,	To show him the pains that were there,
	In al the place saugh he nat a frere;	In all the place he saw not a friar;
	Of oother folk he saugh ynowe in wo.	Of other folk he saw enough in woe.
	Unto this angel spak the frere tho:	Unto this angel spoke the friar thus:
	Now, sire, quod he, han freres swich a grace	"Now sir", said he, "Have friars such a grace
	That noon of hem shal come to this place?	That none of them come to this place?"
	Yis, quod this aungel, many a millioun!	"Yes", said the angel, "many a million!"
	And unto sathanas he ladde hym doun.	And unto Satan the angel led him down.
	--And now hath sathanas,--seith he,--a tayl	"And now Satan has", he said, "a tail,
	Brodder than of a carryk is the sayl.	Broader than a galleon's sail.
	Hold up thy tayl, thou sathanas!--quod he;	Hold up your tail, Satan!" said he.
	--shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se	"Show forth your arse, and let the friar see
	Where is the nest of freres in this place!--	Where the nest of friars is in this place!"
	And er that half a furlong wey of space,	And before half a furlong of space,
	Right so as bees out swarmen from an hyve,	Just as bees swarm out from a hive,
	Out of the develes ers ther gonne dryve	Out of the devil's arse there were driven
	Twenty thousand freres on a route,	Twenty thousand friars on a rout,
	And thurghout helle swarmed al aboute,	And throughout hell swarmed all about,
	And comen agayn as faste as they may gon,	And came again as fast as they could go,
	And in his ers they crepten everychon.	And every one crept into his arse.
	He clapte his tayl agayn and lay ful stille.	He shut his tail again and lay very still.