Great Vowel Shift
What
is the Great Vowel Shift?
The
Great Vowel Shift was a massive sound change affecting the long vowels of
English during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Basically, the long
vowels shifted upwards; that is, a vowel that used to be pronounced in one
place in the mouth would be pronounced in a different place, higher up in the
mouth. The Great Vowel Shift has had long-term implications for, among other
things, orthography, the teaching of reading, and the understanding of any
English-language text written before or during the Shift.
When
we talk about the GVS, we usually talk about it happening in eight steps. It is
very important to remember, however, that each step did not happen overnight.
At any given time, people of different ages and from different regions would
have different pronunciations of the same word. Older, more conservative
speakers would retain one pronunciation while younger, more advanced speakers
were moving to a new one; some people would be able to pronounce the same word
two or more different ways. The same thing happens today, of course: I can
pronounce the word "route" to rhyme with "boot" or with
"out" and may switch from one pronunciation to another in the midst
of a conversation. 
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