A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language. The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vowel shift near the beginning of the Common Era, which included iotacism.

The Great Vowel Shift was a series of pronunciation changes in the vowels of the English language that took place primarily between the 1400s and 1600s [1] (the transition period from Middle English to Early Modern English), beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English.

Vowels are sounds in which the air stream moves up from the lungs and through the vocal tract very smoothly; there’s nothing blocking or constricting it. The first sounds in the words extra, only, and apple are vowels.

When studied carefully, however, there is not quite as much movement in the vocal tract when these two sounds are pronounced when compared with [ɔι], [aʊ], and [aι]. The takeaway point is that the tongue, jaw, and lips need to move a lot when …

Apr 18, 2020 · Based on positioning of the tongue, the vowels are divided into three classes: front, back and central vowels. In front vowels, the tongue body is held in the pre-palatal region. In back vowels, the tongue body is held in the post-palatal or velar region.

There are 14-16 vowel sounds in American English. Vowels are made by moving the tongue up and down and front to back. Imagine that the chart below represents your mouth: In order to understand how vowels are made, let’s practice moving our …

Vowels can also move in what are called chain shifts. This is not a form of assimilation or metaphony. Rather, it is a process of movement that starts with the raising or lowering of one vowel, which results in a chain of all other vowels moving to fill in the resulting gaps.

Back vowels move to the front. These unidirectional principles operated in the historical record to produce the initial position of Table 2.2. They operate on regional dialects to drive vowels further along these unidirectional paths.

The Great Vowel shift invloved a regular movement of the places of articulation: The front vowels each moved up a notch, except for /i:/, which formed a dipthong. Likewise the back vowels moved up, except for /u:/, which formed another dipthong:

Start by singing [i] in the middle of the range with a slight smile. The hump of the tongue should be elevated forward in the mouth. Then, open the jaw a pinky finger’s width between the molars and sing [e], with the hump of the tongue moving back somewhat and decreasing slightly in height.