Phonological history of English open back vowels
sound change
The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, as well as more recent developments in some dialects such as the cot–caught merger.
Overview
Old and Middle English
In the Old English vowel system, the vowels in the open back area were unrounded: /ɑ/, /ɑː/. There were also rounded back vowels of mid-height: /o/, /oː/. The corresponding spellings were ⟨a⟩ and ⟨o⟩, with the length distinctions not normally marked; in modern editions of Old English texts, the long vowels are often written ⟨ā⟩, ⟨ō⟩.
As the Old English (OE) system developed into that of Middle English (ME), the OE short vowel /ɑ/ merged with the fronted /æ/ to become a more central ME /a/. Meanwhile, the OE long vowel /ɑː/ was rounded and raised to ME /ɔː/. OE short /o/ remained relatively unchanged, becoming a short ME vowel regarded as /o/ or /ɔ/, while OE long /oː/ became ME /oː/ (a higher vowel than /ɔː/). Alternative developments were also possible; see English historical vowel correspondences for details.
Later, ME open syllable lengthening caused the short vowel /o/ to be normally changed to /ɔː/ in open syllables.
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This entry incorporates text from “Phonological history of English open back vowels” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.