Martha’s Vineyard Change

• Change in dipthongs:[au] [əu]

(“trout, house”)

[ai] [əi](“night, like”)

• Why these two sounds? Is there a connection between the changes?

Vowel sounds

• Say the following vowel sounds aloud:

a, e, i, o, u (as in pan, pen, pin, upon, pun)

• What differences can you spot between the position of your tongue in your mouth as you say these words?

Vowel triangles

High[u][i]

[a]Low

Front [e] [o] Back

How does this relate to Martha’s Vineyard?

Martha’s Vineyard : Vowel shifts

• Change in dipthongs:[au] [əu]

(“trout, house”)

[ai] [əi](“night, like”)

High[u][i]

[a]Low

Front [e] [o] Back

• Because the [a] sound is moving up the vowel triangle on one side ( [au] [əu] ), the opposite sound is copying it ( [ai] [əi] ).

“The Great Vowel Shift”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHEuRJmAo9Q

Sally Gunnell interview

Estuary English: what is happening?

• In ‘Estuary English’, the following changes are taking place:

“mean” [miin] “main” [mein]“main” [mein] “mine” [main]“mine” [main] “moin” [moin]

“moon” [muun] “moan” [moun]“moan” [moun] “moun” [maun]

“mound” [maund] “meund” [meund]

• Using the vowel triangle, try to work out what is happening with these sounds.

• Clue: try to split the dipthongs into two groups to begin with.

Estuary English vowel sound shifts

Homework:Research William Labov’s study of New York ‘r’

sounds and write up your findings.

How might this link to other areas of language change?

What other areas of sound changes might we be interested in?