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Early Modern English (sometimes abbreviated EModE [1] or EMnE) or Early New English (ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle English, in the late 15th century, to the transition to Modern English, in the mid-to-late 17th century.
The cheer–chair merger is the merger of the Early Modern English sequences [iːr] and [eːr], which is found in some accents of modern English. The fern–fir–fur merger is the merger of the Middle English vowels /ɪ, ɛ, ʊ/ into [ɜr] when historically followed by /r/ in the coda of the syllable.
Diagram of the changes in English vowels during the Great Vowel Shift. 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.
Common in a vast majority of modern English dialects worldwide is the merger of as many as five Early Modern English vowels (/ɛ/, /ɛː/, /ə/, /ɪ/, and /ʊ/) into /ɜ/ when followed by an /r/ before a consonant or at the end of a syllable. Thus, the vowels in words like fir, fur, and fern are the same in almost all modern accents of English.
Moving forward in time, the two Middle English vowels /a/ and /aː/ correspond directly to the two vowels /a/ and /ɛː/, respectively, in the Early Modern English of c. 1600 AD (the time of Shakespeare). However, each vowel has split into a number of different pronunciations in Modern English, depending on the phonological context.
The spellings that became established in Early Modern English are mostly still used today, but the qualities of the sounds have changed significantly. The /iː/ and /eː/ generally corresponded to similar Old English vowels, and /ɛː/ came from Old English /æː/ or /æːɑ̯/. For other possible histories, see English historical vowel ...
Modern English evolved from Early Modern English which was used from the beginning of the Tudor period until the Interregnum and Stuart Restoration in England. [5] By the late 18th century, the British Empire had facilitated the spread of Modern English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy ...
In the Old English vowel system, the vowels in the open back area were unrounded: /ɑ/, /ɑː/.There were also rounded back vowels of mid-height: /o/, /oː/.The corresponding spellings were a and o , with the length distinctions not normally marked; in modern editions of Old English texts, the long vowels are often written ā , ō .