A history of the English Language

174.
The Importance of Sound-changes.
The subject of sound-changes is just as important in the history of languages as the 
changes in grammar and vocabulary. But it lends itself less readily to generalization and 
brief presentation. Any treatment of even the vowels, if it would have value, must 
proceed by examining each of the vowel sounds individually, determining its character at 
a given time, tracing its source in the preceding period, and following its subsequent 
development both independently and under the influence of neighboring sounds and 
varying conditions of accent, often noting significant differences in its development in 
different dialects, and, sometimes, in individual words, its modification through the 
analogical influence of other words. It is obviously impossible to enter upon such a study 
here. Some sounds in English have been less subject to change than others and would 
offer little difficulty. For example, the short 
e
under certain conditions has remained 
unchanged since Old English times: OE 
b
ĕ
dd
is still 
bed
today. On the other hand, to take 
a fairly simple case, the 
ā
in OE 
st
ā
n
(stone) became about 1100 a sound like that in 
law
The renaissance, 1500-1650 219

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in central and southern England. In the great vowel shift that began to take place 
in all long vowels in the fifteenth century this sound underwent a further change so that in 
Shakespeare’s pronunciation it has become a close similar to its pronunciation at the 
present day 
(stone)
. Today the 
o
is followed by a slight 
u
glide [sto
u
n] or [stoUn] which 
some authorities believe arose in the nineteenth century, while others trace it back as far 
as the seventeenth. On the other hand, the development here described did not take place 
in the north of England. There the OE 
ā
instead of being rounded to an developed into 
a sound that rhymes with 
lane (stane),
and this is its pronunciation in Scotland today. For 
the detailed treatment of English sounds the student must be referred to the various 
historical grammars and works that make it their special concern.
37
Here we must confine 
ourselves to a few broad observations.