Late-West Saxon Era for the English Language - Essay Example

The changes in Great Vowel Shift were that all long vowels raised or diphthongized. /a/, //, /e/ become //, /e/, /i/, respectively. (IPA Transcription text 174-S.Midland English, 1st line second word) ,//, /o/ become /o/, /u/, respectively. (IPA Transcription text 174-S.Midland English,5th line 1st word), and also /i/, /u/ become /i/ and /u/, later /ai/. Apart from changes in vowel, the other main change was Changes in Diphthong. Inherited height-harmonic diphthongs were monophthongized by the loss of the second component, with the length remaining the same.

// and // became // and //. (as appeared throughout in IPA transcription text of text 174-Late Saxon English for e-g in the first line second word second alphabet). In S. Midlands Loss of most remaining diphthongs. Like /ou/ (and former /u/, merged into /ou/ in Early Middle English) became /o/ and / became /e/ after the shift causing the long mid mergers. (as appeared in IPA transcription Text 174 S Midlands, 4th line 8 word)There were also changes made in Syllables which was the first step of transition towards the development of modern English.

In the Late-West Saxon era, there was Middle English open syllable lengthening: Vowels were usually lengthened in open syllables (13th century), except when trisyllabic would apply (as discussed in the vowels part. In S.Midlands there was a Loss of // in final syllables. How many different dialects of English and pronunciation do we hear nowadays. All these were part of the development of English from the Late West Saxon Era and S.Midland's era. The major pronunciation that took place in the Late West Saxon era was Voiced fricatives became independent phonemes through borrowing and other sound changes and /SW/ before back vowel becomes /s/; /MB/ becomes /m/.

(as in Sword and lamb became sort and lam in pronunciation). In the S.Midland era, there were some pronunciation changes as well. This era is marked by the development of some of the common accents including some in Northern England, East Anglia, South Wales. Thus, the development of English has a history to tell. It has seen thousands of years of development before it has come in its modern form. It has become a common language because it is a mixture of many languages particularly German and who knows how many other languages had played their part in its development.

English, at first was difficult but it was more towards the German. But as the times passed various changes like Changes in Vowels, Diphthongs, and Syllables made it easy to read, write and speak. Thus, due to this progress, changes, and development of English, we see it today as a language of common culture and people from different parts of the world use it as their means of communication.