A history of the English Language

173.
Shakespeare’s Pronunciation.
Shakespeare’s pronunciation, though not ours, was much more like ours than has always 
been realized. He pronounced [e] for [i] in some words just as Pope could still say 
tay
for 
tea
.
36
The falling together of 
er, ir, ur
(e.g., 
herd, birth, hurt
) was under way but not yet 
completed. As explained in § 175, ME 
ē
was sometimes open, sometimes close [
ε
: e:] 
and the two sounds were still distinct in Shakespeare’s day, [e:] and [i:] respectively. 
Consequently 
sea
[se:] does not normally rhyme with 
see
[si:],
36 
Cf. page 19. 
A history of the english language 218

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heap
with 
keep, speak 
with
 seek,
etc. Toward the close of the fifteenth century an attempt 
was made to distinguish between them by the spelling. The closer sound was often 
spelled with 
ee
or 
ie (deep, field)
while the more open sound was as often written 
ea (sea, 
clean)
. But the practice was not consistently carried out. Although the two sounds are 
now identical, this variation in spelling is a reminder of the difference in pronunciation 
that long existed. We should also probably notice considerable difference in the 
pronunciation of words containing a 
This regularly developed into [u:], as in 
room, food, roof, root,
and it retains this sound in many words today. In some words the 
vowel was shortened in the fifteenth century and was unrounded to the sound in 
blood, 
flood
. In still other words, however, it retained its length until about 1700 but was then 
shortened without being unrounded, giving us the sound in 
good, stood, book, foot
. It is 
apparent that in Shakespeare’s day there was much fluctuation in the pronunciation of 
words containing this Middle English vowel, both in the different parts of the country and 
in the usage of different individuals. Consequently we find in the poetry of the period a 
word like 
flood
rhyming not only with 
blood
but also with 
mood
and 
good
. In fact, as late 
as Dryden we find in the same rhyme 
flood—mood—good,
the three developments of the 
sound at the present day. It is only in recent times that the pronunciation of these words 
has been standardized, and even today there is some vacillation between a long and short 
vowel in some of them, for example, in 
broom, room,
and 
roof
. In addition to such 
differences in the quality of vowels there were some differences of accent. Shakespeare 
said 
persev
′
er, demon
′
strate,
and generally 
aspect
′
, de
′
testable,
while he has 
charact
′
er, 
com
′
mendable, envy
′
, se
′
cure, welcome
′
,
etc., in contrast to the accentuation that is 
customary in these words today. On the whole, however, we should probably have little 
more difftculty in understanding Shakespeare’s pronunciation than we experience in 
listening to a broad Irish brogue. The situation would be very different with the language 
of Chaucer. And the reason is that in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
the vowels of Middle English, especially the long vowels, underwent a wholesale but 
quite regular shifting, about which something must be said.