ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the major changes in the pronunciation of English which took place in the Middle English and Early Modern English periods. The changes were caused by what is known as the Great Vowel Shift (GVS). The chapter discusses the fact that English spelling does not well represent the way English is pronounced. The Great Vowel Shift lasted from 1350 till 1700, and therefore spanned the Middle English (ME) and Early Modern English (EModE) periods. There were two types of changes that affected these long vowels in the GVS. The first was diphthongization, a process in which monophthong vowels became diphthongs. Speakers of other languages who are learning English complain regularly about the considerable mismatch between English spellings and sounds. In a perfect linguistic world, each letter of the alphabet would have just one pronunciation, and each sound would be represented by just one alphabet letter.
