File talk:Great Vowel Shift.svg

This diagram is biased towards British English. But it's still a great diagram. John Riemann Soong (talk) 11:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking the same thing. Since English is pluricentric, I think it might help to clarify that the "modern" values are those found in British English.--Witan (talk) 03:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requests[edit]

I have some requests that I would like added to this diagram:

Where does the vowel in book, took, etc, fit in. Is it the same as "put"?
Could we have the Middle English spelling of these words as well? I'm particularly interested to see which used the letter æ

Great diagram, though. Thanks.

-- TimNelson (talk) 07:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I needed a moment to check this: the long closed [o:] as in moon is actually branching into three different directions. If the vowel stays long it becomes a long [u:]. In some environments (an "environment" is given with consonants) the long [u:] looses its length. If it does so before 1600 it takes its further course on the last track together with "cut". You see this hapen with blood. If the [u:] looses its length after 1600 it is not affected by the [ʌ]:-development. It is just shortened to [u] as in book, took, look etc. --Olaf Simons (talk) 08:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PS The diagram is given mostly without exceptions. One could, however, think of the more complex diagram. --Olaf Simons (talk) 08:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]