Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, a profound transformation took place in the ways that the English language was spoken and words were pronounced. This “Great Vowel Shift” saw a change in the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels, resulting in spellings of words that often deviated considerably from how they are pronounced.

In this edition of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis talks to Simon Roper - who makes videos about linguistics for YouTube - about the developments that led to the English language changing forever.

The Senior Producer on this episode was Elena Guthrie. It was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg.

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