25. Changes in the System of Spelling

French graphic habits were introduced, and marking the sounds became more European, all the letters were exclusively Latin. English sounds, earlier marked by letters specific only for the English language were replaced by digraphs. ʒ and wynn were replaced by Latin letters: ʒod - god , ʒēar – year

The sound dʒ marked by cʒ was also rendered by g or dg - singe, bridge. In French borrowings the same sound was marked according to the French tradition by j - judge, June.

The letter q always accompanied by u is introduced to denote either the consonant k or the cluster kw - quay; quarter, queen.

z is introduced to denote the corresponding sound in some cases Zephyrus, zel (zeal); but in traditional chesen it was not.

Long ū was replaced by digraph ou, in the French tradition: hūs – hous; it was found in French words: trouble, couch; in final position, and occasionally in medial it was ow: hū- how; cū-cow, dūn - down.

In some cases the sound u came to be represented by 0, especially when it stood neighbouring the letters with many vertical lines lufu - loue; cumen — comen etc.

Long sound ō is now rendered by oo: fōt —>foot

Long Old English ē was marked either by a digraph ee: mētan - mete, meete (to meet) or turned into ie; feld -field;

The sibilant [tʃ] formerly rendered by c before or after front vowels was replaced by a digraph ch: cild, cēosan, hwilc - child, chesen, which (the same sound was found in the words chambre, chair, taken from French);

The sound [dʒ] of various origin is marked by the letters j, g, dg - courage, joy, bridge.

The sound [ʃ] , formerly rendered by sc is rendered by the combinations sh and sch: scip, fisc, sceal - ship, fish, schal.

The sound [k] rendered by c before consonants is rendered by k - cniht - knight.

26. Middle English Phonology

The first change in the phonological system to be mentioned is the levelling of sounds - vowels in the unstressed syllables. Middle sounds in polysyllabic words tend to change various sounds to one neutral sound shwa, marked as e. The paradigm was simplified; at the same time in verbs various endings also merged into a single sound form - wrītan, writen, writon - writen; wrītað, wrīteð- to writeth. Final sounds m and n are on the way to being lost altogether: carum, stanum - care, stone.

In the unstressed syllables of the verb forms most frequent is the case that it was preserved in the forms of the participle, and tended to be lost in the infinitive; but even in the participles it was lost if the root of the word already had a nasal sound (binden - bound - bounden - later simply bound).

The same phenomenon is seen in the numeral an (one) that became an indefinite article (a) in present-day-English, and in possessive pronouns mine and thine that have forms my and thy if they are not followed by a noun that begins with a vowel.

In some phonetic environment only short vowels are possible; in the other the vowels are invariably long. First, a long vowel before two consonants is shortened; the exception here are the clusters mb, ld, nd or when the two consonants belonged to the second syllable of the word. (mǣste, lǣst — most; least)

Individual vowels The most significant change was monophthongization of Old English diphthongs: short ea – æ – a(heard – hard); short eo – e(feoll – fell); short ie – I or e(nieht – niht(night)). Long diphthongs: ēa – æ: - ɛ: (ēast - ɛ:st(east)); ēo – e: (dēop – deep).

Individual sounds: æ – a(ðæt – that); ǣ - ɛ: (dǣl – deal); ēā, ǣ - ɛ: open; ea, æ – (short).

long ā turned into long ͻ: (hām - hͻ:me). Long and short y turned into i(dyde – dide(did)). The system of vowels contained short I, e closed, ɛ open, a, o, u which developed: i – from OE(I – HIT – IT), e(eo – heorte – herte), a(a – abbod – abbot; æ – ðæt – that), o(a(o) - lanʒ - long), u(u – sunu – son). New diphthongs appeared in ME as a result of the changes in the consonant system of the language: k’ – [tʃ] marked by ch; sk’ - [ʃ] marked by sh; ʒ’ - [j]; cʒ - [dʒ]. h in the beginning of such clusters as hr, hl, hn, hw was lost(hrinʒ - ring). The sound γ(marked by ʒ) turned into w: aʒ - aw, æʒ - ai, ay; eʒ - ei, ey. ʒ+vowel – long vowels: iʒ, yʒ - i;(ryʒe – rie, rye); uʒ - u: (buʒan – bowen). In combination with liquids new diphthongs appeared: lʒ, rʒ - lw, rw [oʋ] and [aʋ] : sorʒian – sorwen, sorrow.