Monophthongs diphthongs

a æ e i o u y ea eo

ā ǽ ē ī ō ū ý ēa ēo

As we see in Old English there existed an exact parallelism between long vowels and the corresponding short vowels. Nor only monophthongs but even diphthongs found their counterparts which differed from them not only in quality but also in quantity. Thus we may say that in the system of vowels both the quality and the quantity of the vowel was phonemic. All the diphthongs were falling diphthongs with the first element stronger than the second, the second element being more open than the first.

Examples:

Monophthongs diphthongs

ā – a: stān – dagas ēo – eo: cēosan – heorte

(choose) (heart)

ǽ - æ: dæd – dæg ēa – ea: cēas – eald

(chose) (old)

ō – o: gōd – god

(god) (good)

ī – i: wrītan – writen

(write) (written)

Origin of Old English vowel phonemes

All Old English vowel phonemes can be traced back to Common Germanic vowel phonemes. Old English monophthongs are, as rule, a further development of some Common Germanic monophthongs.

For example:

Old English from Common Germanic

[æ] [a]

dæз dags

[i] [i]

bindan bindan

[o] [u]

coren cusan, etc.

Some Old English monophthongs developed from Common Germanic diphthongs:

Old English from Common Germanic (Gothic)

Old English from Common Germanic

eald (old) *ald

heorte (heart) *herte

Changes in Old English vowel phonemes

1.2.0. The changes that took place in the prehistoric period of the development of the English language and which explain the difference between Old English and Common Germanic vowels of two types: assimilative changes and independent (non-assimilative) changes.

Independent changes do not depend upon the environment in which the given sound was found. They cannot be explained but they are merely stated.

Common Germanic Old English

ai > ā

a > æ, etc.

Assimilative changes are explained by the phonetic position of the sound in the word and the change can and must be explained. Among the many phonetic assimilative changes which took place in the prehistoric period of the development of the English language and which account for the discrepancy between the Old English and the Common Germanic vowel system the most important are breaking and palatal mutation.

Breaking

The process of breaking took place in the 6^th century. It affected two vowels – [æ] and [e] when they were followed by the consonants [r], [i], [h] generally followed by another consonant.

The resulting vowel was a diphthong (hence the name “breaking” – a monophthong “was broken” into a diphthong), consequently the process may be summed up as diphthongization of short vowels [æ] and [e] before certain consonant clusters.

For example:

æ > ea before r + consonant ærm > earm (arm)

l + consonant æld > eald (old)

h + consonant æhta > eahta (eight)

h final sæh > seah (saw)

e > ea before r + consonant herte > heorte (heart)

lc + consonant melcan > meolcan (milk)

lh + consonant selh > seolh (sael)

h final feh > feoh (cattle)

Palatal mutation

The qualitative change of Old English vowels that experts call palatal mutation, or I – mutation, occurred somewhere during the 6^th – 7^th centuries. The process affected Germanic words where a vowel in a stressed syllable was immediately followed by the sound [i] or [j] in the next syllable. Almost all vowels, both diphthongs and monophthongs, in the context described above became further forward and higher, or more palatal and more narrow, with the exception of [e] and [i] which could go no further. This may be described as a kind of vowel harmony – a natural process affecting many modern languges: the vowels mutate, the change being caused by their partial assimilation to the following vowel (or semi-vowel).

Monophthongs

a> e strangiÞu > strengÞu (strength)

æ > ea tælian > tellan (to tell)

ā > æ hālian > hælan (to heal)

o > e ofstian > efstan (to hurry)

o > ē domain > dēman (to deem)

u > y fullian > fyllan (to fill)

ū > y cūÞian > cyÞan (to announce)

As a result of palatal mutation new phonemes entered the vowel system in Old English – the vowel phoneme [y] and the vowel phoneme [y], the result of the mutation of [u] and [u], respectively.

Ea > ie ealdira > ieldra (elder)

ēa > īe зelēafian > зelīefian (to believe)

eo > ie afeorrian > afierran (to remove)

ēo > īe зetrēowi > зetrīewe (true)