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At 02:47 AM 2/24/2008, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 12:21
AM, hkhenson wrote:<br>
><br>
> One of the mysteries of the past is why both German and
English<br>
> underwent a serious shift between 1200 and 1600 in the way
vowels are<br>
> spoken. It's part of the reason English spelling (partly
set before<br>
> the shift) is such a non phonetic mess.<br>
><br><br>
Invasions, migrations and the printing press.<br>
Oh - you want more detail??<br><br>
1066 Norman Invasion started the end of Old English.<br>
The nobility (and courts, etc.) spoke Old French, the commoners - Old
English.<br>
The Black Death, 1350, killed about one third of the population, and<br>
the working classes (and their language) grew in importance. By
about<br>
1400 or so, the mixture was complete and England spoke Middle
English.<br>
The next wave of innovation in English, and the Great Vowel Shift,<br>
came with the Renaissance, 1450 -1700.<br>
The printing press, Shakespeare, standardised spelling, all created<br>
Modern English. The dialect of London, where most publishing houses<br>
were located, became the standard. Spelling and grammar became
fixed,<br>
and the first English dictionary was published in 1604.<br><br>
<br>
I don't see any need to create a mystery about it.</blockquote><br>
I didn't create a mystery about it. Hardly considered it before
that post.<br><br>
"The surprising speed and the exact cause of the shift are
continuing mysteries in
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics">linguistics</a> and
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_history">cultural
history</a>, " <br><br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift" eudora="autourl">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift</a><br><br>
And since it also happened to German, Icelandic, and Dutch there is a
need to consider common factors affected the speakers of these
languages. Dr. Clark would probably have interesting things to say
about common factors in settled agricultural polities with nasty winters
if someone were able to get his attention. He would probably say
that all these peoples came from approximately the same genetic stock and
were subjected to about the same intense genetic selection in a Mathusian
trap over this time period. A genetic underpinning to the vowel
shift is just speculation at this point, but there might be evidence for
it. Maybe the Black Death was *directly* responsible if a genetic
factor for the vowel shift was close by to genes favoring resistance to
<i>Y. pestis</i>.<br><br>
It's also part of the picture that a lot of languages have hardly drifted
at all over a much longer period of time. To what extent, if at
all, does genetic selection accompany vowel shift?<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">English is still<br>
changing as words from other languages and fashionable accents enter<br>
the mix.</blockquote><br>
That's true. But the major effect I have seen over my life is the
fading of regional accents.<br><br>
Keith</body>
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