This ruined English spelling

Oh the Great Vowel Shift. What a mess you made. In this video, let's explore what the GVS was and why it screwed up English spelling forever.

More excellent GVS videos:

Check me out on the web, on Twitter & TikTok:

==CHAPTERS==
0:00 Introduction
0:36 What is the Great Vowel Shift?
3:24 Words that changed
5:09 Chaucer
5:40 More words that changed
6:38 Why did the GVS happen?
9:49 Variations in England, USA, Canada
11:07 Consonant changes
12:51 Often or offen?
13:18 Silent K and G

[spoken]

We should call it "The irritable vowel shift" then.

[waverod]

Basically, English standardized its spelling at exactly the wrong moment.

[pixelsquish]

“Look” and “spook” and “book” do all rhyme for me. (cries in Scottish)

[KyuuketsukiAkado]

I study linguistics at a university in Belarus. Today I had an exam in the history of English language and got a question related to your video. Thanks to you, I was able to write it well :)

[adretter]

As a German, at minute 13:29 where you pulled out the words "Knight" and "Gnome", I tried to apply the "original" "gh" sound on knight, but also pronouncing the k, it instantly sounded like the German "Knecht".

[vbandke]

English is a difficult language. It can be understood through tough thorough thought though….

[mygetawayart]

This is BY FAR the easiest and most comprehensible explanation of the Great Vowel Shift i've ever seen. Every linguist will overcomplicate it by assuming you can fluently read the IPA and know exactly what are the various classifications of consonants and what's the exact difference between similar vowel sounds, so it always ends up sounding like an advanced algebra lesson instead of a quick 15 minute explaination.

[lohto]

When I saw the video title, I shook an imaginary fist and blamed the French first and foremost.

[carrieanderson]

Thank you Rob! I’m an ESL teacher, and these videos have helped me explain some of our strange English pronunciation and spelling to my students 😊

[amyjervis]

Oh, you did it! I asked you to do the great vowel shift in a comment on one of your previous videos. I told you I’d rather learn it from you than anyone. And now you have. Quite an undertaking to explain all that. Thank you so much.

[AdDewaard-huxk]

"Until we mate again" signoff. Ouch.

[thomaschase]

Most of my family emigrated from East Anglia to Wells, Maine USA around 1640. My Great Aunt and Uncle lived across the street from us and were like Grandparents to me. They were both born around 1880 and talked with the old "Maine accent". there is a section of Wells that is a raised bog with very little tree growth (unusual for here) of about 500 acres. It has always been called "The Great Heath", pronounced hayth. I noticed many pronunciation and word usage anomalies when I went to elementary school. The teacher was adamant that chimney should be used rather than chimbley. Hark was in common usage at home, mainly telling children to be quiet and listen. A Drain was pronounced dreen, particularly the pipe draining the cellar. A funnel was called a tunnel. A recipe was a receipt. The Maine accent is non rhotic and practically all vowels are pronounced (door is two syllables) something like doe-wah. In the fall at killing time, a beef to be slaughtered was always called "a creature" as in "are you goin' ta kill a creecha this fall?" keep up the good work, I find your postings very interesting.

[markjustus]

Very interesting! As a Dutch person learning to speak English it was very strange to see same spelling being pronounced very differently. The funny thing is that if I would pronounce the English words in a Dutch way (reading the words as if they were Dutch words), these words, I now find, sounded a lot like the original words. Keep on doing this good work, Rob!

[DenOnTheCoast]

Hi Rob, I’m very much a fan of yours & I love your videos. As an amateur linguist for the past 50 years, I absolutely loved this video. It took me decades to distill all the information you’ve brought together in this production & you should be very proud of the quality of your work. And the cherry on the cake? In my humble opinion, this is the slickest video you have produced (and I have watched them all!). Cheers! Dennis

[charlesfenton]

I wondered most of my life why Australian english seemed to have lost so many of the distinctive nuances of the variety of dialects from all over Britain, that walked off the first ships onto Australian shores. We kept, and still use, so many phrases, words, slang etc but the accent is flatter and more homogenous.
The best explaination I've read is that convicts and settlers had to conciously pull their regional accents down to a level all could comprehend.
I think we had our own vowel shift!
Excellent article as usual Rob.

[frankhooper]

Looking at the three main western germanic languages, English went through its great vowel shift; High German underwent its consonant shift; Dutch basically ignored these changes. That's why you find quite a few cognates where the Dutch word has roughly the same consonants as English, and roughly the same vowels as German - appel/apple/Apfel straat/street/Straße.

[musicforawhale]

As a French native speaker, I’ve always been amused by other French speakers saying English is so easy, unknowingly admitting they have no idea how complex English pronunciation can be

[ahmedgad]

This is very interesting and helps non-native speakers of English like me understand why words are spelt differently to how they're pronounced. And hats off to you, Rob, for explaining it so well. You made it really easy to understand. 👏👏

[alsecen]

I love this channel, and never realized how obscure the spelling is of many of the words I use daily. Keep up the great work!

[SigEpBlue]

Hey thanks for the link to the IPA Website. That's really useful, and fun!