Great Vowel Shift

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/great-vowel-shift

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the timeframe of primary change?Approximately 1400s to 1600s
2. What is the geographic nucleus?Southern England
3. Why does English spelling look weird after the Great Vowel Shift?Because when people started printing books, they wrote words the way they were pronounced before the shift, so the spellings stayed the same even though the sounds changed.
4. How did the Great Vowel Shift happen in different places?It started in southern England and spread slowly to other areas, so people in different towns heard and said vowels a little differently at first.

Phonology: The study of sound systems in language and the rules that govern them.
Orthography: The conventional spelling system of a language.
Diphthongization: The process where a single vowel sound changes into a glide from one sound to another.
Linguistic Drift: The gradual change in the characteristics of a language over time.