22st-raw

Attila Starčević

Early Modern English Pronunciation – The Evidence from Hungarian

1. Introduction: the Author and his Book György Komáromi Csipkés was a Hungarian Calvinist theologian, translator of the Bible, a prolific writer in ecclesiastical topics, and a man of many other talents, including his aptitude for writing grammars (in Latin). After his grammar on Hebrew (Schola Hebraica, 1654) and Hungarian (Hungaria Illustrata, 1655), he wrote a grammar book titled Anglicvm Spicilegium1 on English in 1664, being the first Hungarian author to do so. The book is also the first grammar book in Hungary that contains a relatively well-written and complex chapter on (then contemporary) Early Modern English (EMoE) pronunciation, if not phonology (‘well-written’ must be taken with some reservation though), something that cannot be said about the rest of his book (see below). Komáromi spent nine months in England in 1652 (mentioned specifically in the introduction) following his stay in Utrecht, where he pursued his doctoral studies in oriental languages. After his studies in England, he returned to Utrecht where he completed his doctoral degree, returning eventually to Hungary in 1653. The book was written some ten years after his return to Hungary, ultimately published in 1664 in Debrecen. As was usual, the grammar was written in Latin. The only extant copy of the book is found in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (in the Ráth György collection), digitized in 2021. The book was translated into Hungarian by C. Vladár in 2021. No English translation of the book exists. The impetus to this article, as well as the translation of the grammar into Hungarian, was provided by Balogh (2022), who analyses the work from a number of aspects and positions it in a wider Hungarian (and not only Hungarian) context. After publication, the book lay forgotten; the next known mention of the book is by Károly Szabó in 1885 in the second volume of his series of Old Hungarian Libraries. The grammar cannot have had a wide audience to enjoy it, as interest in English ran low at that time (the lingua franca of learning was 1

The full title reads Anglicvm Spicilegium, hoc est, Breves quaedam observatiunculae, ad discendam, legendam & intelligendā, lingvam, scripturamque Anglicam, utiles simul ac necessariae, translating loosely as English browsing, that is some short remarks that are useful and also necessary for learning, reading and understanding the English language and writing.

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Latin, but the educated also spoke French, and, above all, German, a language that was geographically and culturally closer to Hungary than English). In the preface to his book, Komáromi informs us that the students of the University in Debrecen asked him specifically to compose this book. He also emphasises the fact that knowing English is vital for those pursuing ecclesiastical studies to be able to read and understand English puritan literature. The lack of general popularity for the book is evident in the number of surviving copies of it (one single copy). Little is known about Komáromi’s whereabouts in England (Korponay 1972). He may have spent his time at Oxford, as the Bodley Library contains the Hungarian translation of Johannes Wolleb’s Compendium Theologiae Christianae by Komáromi. This must be taken with some caution, of course, as the library may have acquired his work through different channels or from later donations (Korponay 1972). One thing can be said with certainty: he did spend some time in Ickham in Kent upon his arrival to England in what can only have been Dover at the time. His Speculum Poeticum (now found in the University of Chicago Library) contains a possessory note dated 1655 by Aldrich Swan (Balázs 2011): “This book was ſent me out of Hungary by ye Author who formerly travellid into England, & ſojournid at my ffathirs houſe at Ickham in Kent.” As Ickham (or Kent) did not house a university at the time, Komáromi must have continued his journey further north to a major seat of learning like Oxford or Cambridge. Coming closer to the book, we can see that there is no chapter devoted to syntax, and as far as the chapter on morphology goes, it is a collection of remarks that reveals the limitations of the age. He confuses form and function, or simply he had not quite mastered the language well enough during the period of nine months he spent in England. He claims, for example, that the ‘suffix’ -er is found in both (mono-morphemic) finger and (derived) teacher, -est as a marker of the superlative is detected in both highest and harvest, the suffix -ing in the gerund writing, the verbal adjective walking, the diminutive duckling, as well as king, the two functions (adjectival and adverbial) of -ly are not distinguished. He does, however, correctly identify the following suffixes -ed, -ess, -ness, -hood, -dom, -ship. The chapter has smaller comparative sections involving English and Hungarian, as well as English and Latin. Komáromi does, in fact, do rather well as far as the morphological analysis of Hungarian is concerned, as is evident from his Hungaria Illustrata (C. Vladár 2007, 2011). It seems English was a language he did not quite master well enough for a more substantial analysis to develop. It offers an interesting insight into the pronunciation of post-Shakespearean English. A few caveats are in order: Komáromi was not a linguist, not a phonologist, not a phonetician (in any (pre-)modern meaning of the word like Hart or Wallis, for example), and certainly not a language historian (of English or any language, for that matter). He was not a native speaker of the language and

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thus was unable to arrive at proprioceptive descriptions of his own pronunciation (compared to Hart, Wallis and Cooper). All this notwithstanding, he opens a new window on some of the contentious issues of EMoE pronunciation, аs understood and analysed from a non-English speaking point of view, something that gives an additional level of appreciation to the well-known remarks of English orthoepists, just as Bellot’s (1580) or Flint’s (1740) descriptions do in terms of comparisons with French (cf. Ekwall 1975, Lass 1999). 2. The Great Vowel Shift (or what remains of it) The term Great Vowel Shift (GVS) originates in Jespersen (1909: 231). In a nutshell, Jespersen argued that the seven long monophthongs of Middle English (ME) engaged in a step-locked series of movements, starting with the two high vowels of ME diphthongising (/iː/, /uː/ > /ej/, /ow/),2 followed by the mid-high vowels becoming one degree closer (/eː/, /oː/ > /iː/, /uː/), followed by the midlow ones becoming mid-high (/ɛː/ > /eː/, /ɔː/ > /oː/) and the low (obviously front by this time) /aː/ becoming /ɛː/, later still /eː/. These sets of allegedly interlinked changes in this pull-chain event did not leave any structural imprint in the language: no phoneme was merged with any other. It seems, structurally at least, nothing of great importance happened. From a sufficiently contemporary point of view, all this happened in one fell swoop. These changes were in turn followed by the “lesser vowel-raisings” (Jespersen 1909: 335), which did result in oppositions being lost, referred to as the ‘meet-meat’ merger (/eː/ > /iː/, which increased the number of incidences of an already existing /iː/). The ‘days-daze’ merger (/ɛj/ merging with /ɛː/ (< ME /aː/), merging ultimately with /eː/) increased the number of incidences of /eː/, while extinguishing a diphthong in the front. Another question is whether these sets of movements were part of a pull-chain or push-chain of events. Truth be told, it seems irrelevant from the modern perspective (the results would be the same in either scenario). From the perspective of the data coming from lesser known (or lesser discussed) dialects, as well as the evidence of the orthoepists, it seems there were two series of unrelated shifts engaging in a push-chain relationship. The evidence seems to be well-rehearsed by now. Stockwell & Minkova (1988), Lass (1992c), Lass (1989) and others argue convincingly that GVS is not a monolithic unit: it started with the raising of the mid-high vowels /eː/ and /oː/ to /iː/ and /uː/ in the South, and of /eː/ to /iː/ in the North, leaving /uː/ intact. In the North, ME /oː/ was fronted to /øː/ (known as Northern Fronting, Jordan 1968: §54, later unrounding and becoming /eː/), leaving a gap in the back in the midhigh long vowel series. This shows that /iː/ and /uː/ were only diphthongised (in 2

Jespersen’s symbols are silently replaced with more modern conventions: e.g., /i ./, /u./ for /iː/, /uː/, /ei/ for /ej/. In this article, diphthongs will be shown as a sequence of a (short) vowel followed by a glide, i.e., /ej/, rather than /eɪ/ or /ei/.

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the South) if there was a vowel in the vowel space immediately beneath them. This also shows that this hypothesised chain of movements was a push-chain movement prompted by the long mid vowels, leading to the shifting of the 4 high and mid-high monophthongs of ME. Sporadic spellings for ME /oː/ as ⟨ou⟩ (goude, brouk, doun ‘done’, etc.), ME /eː/ as ⟨i, y⟩ (kype, agryed, believe, etc.), ME /iː/ as ⟨ey⟩ (abeyd, feynd, etc.) suggest that the ME quality of these vowels shifted in the 14th and 15th centuries. There are few examples for ME /uː/ being re-spelt as anything other than the very dubious cases of ⟨aw, au⟩ (caw for cow), which cannot be historically true (ME /uː/ took another few hundred years to reach the quality associated with this innovative spelling). It seems rather that the ⟨ou, ow⟩ digraph was perfectly suited for showing the new diphthongal quality of ME /uː/ (> /ow/) (for details, see Lass 1992c). These changes took place in late ME, see (1). EMoE ushers in a period nothing short of a revolution in how, for the first time, historical data can be accessed, evaluated and used for setting up theories on perceived historical changes: orthoepists appear on the stage. All of them are keen (sometimes proprioceptive) observers of their own language with an acute sense of hearing, but not all of them can be credited with having made that vital step of venturing outside the confines of spelling, (perceived) etymology, and the restrictions of one’s own native tongue. For the first time we have contemporary descriptions of the sounds of EMoE, and they show that (i) the raising of the 4 ME monophthongs was complete and (ii) that the second phase of the raisings traditionally associated with GVS (those of the mid-low and low vowels) had not yet happened and would take another 200 years to complete, see (1), taken from Lass (1992c: 153). (1) Protracted workings of the Great Vowel Shift

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As Lass (1992c: 153) explains, only the framed section forms a coherent, unitary episode within what has come to be known, somewhat overly broadly owing to Jespersen, as the GVS. In Luick’s (1964: §482) words there is an “innerer Zusammenhang” in the framed section, but only there. 3. Komáromi and the post-GVS changes Komáromi came to England in 1652. As far as one can gather, he was only ever exposed to Southern English. He is not like the pioneers of English orthoepism, who devised complex systems of articulatory gestures to describe their vowels and consonants, Komáromi’s main import for EMoE lies in his comparison with 17th century Hungarian, whose phonological system comes very close to Modern Hungarian. Some of the key figures of English ortoepism include John Hart (1551, 1569, 1570), Robert Robinson (1617), Alexander Gil (1621), John Wallis (1653), Christopher Cooper (1685, 1687), who (mostly) knew how to distinguish successfully diphthongs from digraphs, sounds from letters. They are not confounded by orthography and its relation to etymology, and devise a metalanguage (and also a spelling system) that may have its shortcomings and limitations, but form a backbone around which we can build a picture of EMoE in a manner that is impossible for earlier periods (cf. Lass 1989) where we exclusively have spelling to rely on. Let us see how the EMoE-Hungarian correspondences of Komáromi fit into this picture. It is worth noting that he had no ‘axe to grind’ with any of his contemporaries over issues such as dialectal forms (he gives us no hint that he was familiar with any of the differences between any of the vernaculars of EMoE, some ‘worse’, some ‘better’), the detested Mopsea3 of Gil (1621) and their monophthongised use of ME /aj/ as /ɛː/ (or something similar), the relationship between spelling and (perceived) pronunciation, the differences that must have existed among the varied classes of the contemporary society, and the like. Komáromi is an innocent bystander with a Hungarian background. 3.1. ME /iː/ There have been quite a number of takes on the question of the vowel quality of ME /iː/ and /uː/ in EMoE (e.g., Lass 1992a, 1992b). These need not be rehashed here at length (see Lass (1989) for a full account). Wyld (1936), Kökeritz (1953), Dobson (1968), Cercignani (1981), Stockwell (1972), for entangled theoretical reasons, take a dim view of the orthoepical evidence of the best sources we have, and seem intent on making Shakespeare sound more modern than he seems to have been. Kökeritz (1953: 9), for example, claims (with virtually no 3

The Mopsea (anglicised usually as Mopseys) are a condemned class of over-refined, upperclass females in Gil, who show monophthongised versions of ME /aj/, conflating it with ME /ɛː/ (giving EMoE /ɛː/) and of ME /ow/ and /ɔː/ (giving EMoE /ɔː/) in words like day/deal and blow/no. Gil also criticises Hart for propagating the speech of the Mopseys.

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argumentation) that the two ME high vowels were diphthongized to /əj/ and /əw/ (his /əI/ and /əU/). Jespersen (1909), Horn & Lehnert (1956), Chomsky & Halle (1968), based on orthoepical (and theory-internal) evidence take it that the two high vowels were diphthongized to /ej/ and /ow/. Those who oppose this latter view do this for theory-internal reasons: the /ej/, /ow/ (ride, hound) from ME /iː/, /uː/ would plausibly have intersected (and therefore merged) with ME /aj/ (rain, reign) at some point (/æj/, /ɛj/, or /ej/). Hart (1569: 44a) clearly says reid ‘ride’ and hound ‘hound’ have diphthongs. The account he gives is articulatory, not one based on spelling or comparative evidence (30a–b): e is achieved by “by somewhat more closing the mouth, thrusting softlye the inner part of the tongue to the inner and vpper great teeth”, i by “pressing the tongue in like maner, yet somewhat more foreward, and bringing the iawe somewhat more near”; o is achieved by “taking awaye of all the tongue, cleane from the teeth […] and turning the lippes round as a ring”, u by “holding in lyke maner the tongue […] and bringing the lippes so neare togither, as there be left but space that the sound may passe forth.” The description of the two diphthongs clearly shows that /ej/ contains two front elements, /ow/ two rounded (back) elements. No description of these two EMoE diphthongs show anything that could be identified as /ə/ before Hodges (1644) (see Jespersen (1909, 8.21) for more contemporary evidence from Welsh and French). The first good authority for the identical quality of the first element in the two diphthongs is Cooper (1685, 1687), see Lass (1989). Komáromi has night (from ME /iç/) and compares it to Hu fejsze ‘axe’ /fɛjsɛ/ (1664: 15).4 Looking at the phonology of 17th century Hungarian (Gerstner 2018), we have no reason to believe the vowel was anything other than /ɛ/. As there existed two short e’s in Hungarian at the time (/e/ ment ‘he went’ vs /ɛ/ ment ‘he saves’), Komáromi had no difficulty associating the EMoE diphthong with the /ɛ/ in the vowel-glide /ɛj/-sequence of Hungarian, which suggest the EMoE diphthong was phonetically [ɛj], rather that [ej]. We find some further justification for this claim in suggesting that Komáromi could straightforwardly (and more aptly) have translated night as éj /eːj/ ‘night’, but he did not (probably not because of lapse of judgement), suggesting the quality of the EMoE diphthong contained a more open version of e, i.e., [ɛ]. 3.2. ME /uː/ For ou/ow (ME /uː/) Komáromi says it should be pronounced as it is written (18). This can only mean /ow/ (phonetically [ɔw]). Given that Hungarian had (and still has) an opposition between /ɔ/ (kor ‘age’) and /ɒ/ (kar ‘arm’), he cannot have had any difficulty distinguishing these sounds from both /u(ː)/ (lyuk ‘hole’, kút ‘well’) and /oː/ (kór ‘disease’). The same sound is probably found in 4

Page numbers refer to the Latin original.

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joy (18), although this cannot be ascertained with certainty, as he does not directly discuss the quality of the vowel (diphthong) in relation to Hungarian.5 He does, however, discuss the monophthongal o in not, Iohn, etc. (15) identifying it as the /ɒ/ of Hungarian in fal ‘wall’.6 He even transcribes Iohn as gysan.7 We can only surmise that the same quality was found in the diphthong oi/oy /ɒj/ (this is the quality that is usually reconstructed for this period, as is the quality of the ME monophthong o, cf. Lass (1999) and references). It seems then the comparisons with Hungarian (almost a century after Hart, but contemporaneously with Wallis and Hodges) show an EMoE [ɛj] and [ɔw]. Although the 17th century already shows a change in the first element of the two diphthongs towards something that would be construed as a less-peripheral, more centralised vowel (as found in Hodges 1644), we must concede to the fact that this change from [ɛ] and [ɔ] to [ə] coexisted for some time with something that can be described as a more ‘traditional, old-fashioned’ pronunciation of the two ME high vowels. Komáromi gives us no hint about ME /iː/, /uː/ having [ə], although Hungarian ö /ø/ would have been an acceptable (even if not perfect) substitution for the EMoE schwa, rendering them as öj/öu in his transliterations for the Hungarian learners (böjt ‘fast’ would have been a good enough word for comparison). He must have heard such pronunciations (given what Hodges (1644) tells us about this period), but we can find no evidence for this in the grammar. Hungarian ö would have been a suitable candidate for the schwa as it was a phoneme of Hungarian.8 Komáromi would have had no problems distinguishing it from the rest of the vowels: kör ‘circle vs kor vs kert ‘garden’. One of the possible reasons for his failure to do so may have been his exposure to the traditional language of the Bible, read out in reverence (and possibly also discussed in English) by his tutors with a less modern rendition of ME /iː/, /uː/ as [ɛj] and [ɔw]. After all, he went to England to study theology and 5

Interestingly, Komáromi never mentions the EMoE continuation of ME /uj/. This may show that in the dialect he knew (and heard) the merger of the two ME diphthongs /ɒj/ (choice, joy) and /uj/ (join, poison) had already been completed by mid-17c century. A century earlier, Hart still distinguished ME /ɒj/ and /uj/, spelling the two differently: the former with ⟨oi⟩, the latter with ⟨ui⟩ (cf. Lass 1999: 102). There is no doubt, Komáromi would have been able to distinguish /ɒj/ from /uj/ (comparing them to Hungarian haj ‘hair’ and új/ujj ‘new, finger’). We can also see that in this southern dialect /uj/ merged with /ɒj/ before the unrounding and lowering of ME /u/ (/əj/). Otherwise Komáromi would probably have had no difficulty identifying this EMoE vowel with the öj of Hungarian (as in böjt ‘fast’). The vowel of for, however, is identified with the vowel of bor /ɔ/ ‘wine’ (15). This may show an accidental oversight on his part, or perhaps more importantly from a phonological point of view the continued effects of /r/ on ME /ɔ/ in failing to lower it to /ɒ/ (cf. modern for /fɔr/ in General American, rather than /fɑr/ for ME /ɔ/). He had an acute enough ear to render English (sibilant) /dʒ/ as Hungarian gys, that is a sequence of a palatal (non-sibilant) stop (/ɟ/ gy) followed by the (sibilant) fricative (/ʃ/ s). He does use ö to describe the vowel of church (whatever that may have been phonetically), transliterating it as chörch (16), distinguishing it from the vowel of fruit, which is claimed to have Hungarian ü /y/, as in füst ‘smoke’.

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read the protestant Bible in the original. We have no evidence (or any traces) for his real-life exposure to spoken (advanced) EMoE, which must already have contained a central first element in ME /iː/, /uː/. There is another sub-batch of data in this grammar that merit some discussion. Komáromi claims that thou and I are pronounced with an ‘obscure’ a (most probably /ɒ/) + u for thou (18) and a ‘conjoined’ ai (/ɒj/) for I ‘first person singular pronoun’ (15). I is claimed to contain the same vowel as Hungarian haj /hɒj/ ‘hair’, thou is transliterated as dau (18), which can only be /ɒw/ given that Hungarian a is /ɒ/. No further (cross-referenced) data are given for this /ɒj/ and /ɒw/, unfortunately: the same low back rounded vowel is expected in ME /oj/ in EMoE, but perhaps Komáromi was baffled by the variety in which /ɒ/ could be spelled (I, ou, oy/oi).9 If there is any reality to this (and why shouldn’t there be?), we may be led to believe that this conditioned change of EMoE /ej/ [ɛj] and /ow/ [ɔw] to [ɒj] and [ɒw] has something to do with the lack of prosodic prominence of these words (in addition to many more, something we have no examples of in this grammar): these function words are found unstressed (and can only receive emphatic stress for lexical contrast, as in Í did it, not thóu). Out is described as /owt/, but out is a stressed verbal particle (or adverb). Phonologically the change can certainly be analysed as involving the simplification of a complex vocalic nucleus in prosodically recessive (= unstressed) positions (cf. Backley 2011): many languages show that unstressed /e/ is found as /i/, unstressed /o/ as either /u/ or /a/. EMoE /ej/ (phonetically [ɛj]) and /ow/ (phonetically [ɔw]) seem to fit the bill: they are found with a less complex first element giving /aj/ and /aw/, which were phonetically, according to Komáromi’s comparison with Hungarian, [ɒj] and [ɒw] with the two diphthongs having the same initial rounded sound. These vowels are not reported in any other words, lexical or functional. We find some justification for positing this change if we look at the further changes affecting these unstressed in the various dialects of English: my, which had the same vowel in ME, is /mə/ or /mij/ (as in my bag, and in historical addresses like m’lady, m’lord). Lass (1989: 93f) discusses the two historical PRICE/MOUTH patterns originating in EMoE /ej/ and /ow/. The GVS takes ME /ii/, /uu/ and lowers the first mora to /e/, /o/ while keeping the second mora intact in backness and rounding. From here, we have a bifurcation: Pattern I gives us /ɒj/ and /ɒw/ with the second mora being backed in both diphthongs. Throughout the 18th century this will produce /əj/ and /ɒw/, which is described in the 19th century as the educated norm of the South. Pattern II appears as /əj/ and /əw/ with the same first mora 9

Very often when Komáromi (16) is unable to set up rules for pronunciation, he contends that when there are no rules, practice and observation will help the reader learn the right pronunciations. He was obviously hamstrung by his inability to effectively distinguish letters from sounds and also by the fact that there was no standardised spelling at the time, so quite some confusion must have resulted from any attempt to compare the two.

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in the two originally distinct ME diphthongs. Later these develop into /aj/ and /aw/. The modern ‘crossover’ development found in Southern Standard British English as /ɑj/, /aw/ is a modern one, not rooted in the two patterns described here. Now if this is all true, Komáromi may have been a witness to the initial step of Pattern I, starting its development in unstressed positions first, giving [ɒj] (I) and [ɒw] (thou) first, which was later extended to diphthongs in stressed positions (night, buy). We have no independent evidence for this line of development, but the suggestions do not seem far-fetched. 3.3. ME /eː/ and /oː/ For ME /eː/ and /oː/, he gives us the values we expect: the values of hee ‘he’, shee ‘she’, vee [sic] ‘we’ are equated with the í [iː] of Hungarian (kín ‘torment’) and Latin. For ME /oː/, he has EMoE /uː/ in do/doe (16, and later p.40), for which he gives us Latin correspondences only: dudum (with an etymologically long first vowel) ‘a short while ago’ and unda (with a short vowel) ‘wave’. We have no Hungarian correspondence here, and it is not clear why, as he could have supplied examples like kút, lyuk.10 All in all, these four vowels were raised during the GVS. The rest of the long monophthongs, as we saw above, were only raised (much) later. So, what did Komáromi hear during his stay in England? 3.4. ME /aː/, /ɛː/ and /aj/ Hart, a century before Komáromi, says that both short and long /a/ are produced “with wyde opening the mouth, as when a man yauneth.” Lass (1989: 79) says that although the act of yawning can hardly be localised as front or back, he assumes it is unlikely that Hart describes a non-open vowel, so Lass takes this (based on converging evidence) to mean that EMoE /aː/ (as in name) was a front vowel. Jespersen (1907: 30), however, takes this passage to mean that Hart’s long and short a’s were back vowels. It seems the act of yawning can be interpreted in two different ways, after all. The same vowels are described as ‘palatal’ by Wallis (1653: 7–8), so the two could already have approached [æː] (Lass 1989: 81) for a speaker of Wallis’ generation (b. 1616). The first clear description of something higher than this, i.e., /ɛː/, is by Cooper (1687). Of course, whatever the quasi-exact specification of ME /aː/ was in EMoE, all descriptions converge on it having been a front vowel still differentiated from the vowel (usually) spelt ⟨ea⟩, as in leaf (ME /ɛː/). 10

He does not distinguish the ‘long ú’ from the ‘short u’ of Hungarian or Latin. Modern Hungarian shows the collapse of the contrastive difference of length in /u/, a phonological contrast that is traditionally claimed to have existed but may never have. We will not dwell on this here, as we can be sure that EMoE do cannot have contained a short u and that Komáromi could only have heard a high back vowel (of some ‘uninteresting’ length for him).

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ME /ɛː/, as in leaf, is described by Hart and Wallis as /ɛː/, which is a vowel different from (i.e., not merged with) ME /aː/, which was /aː/ for Hart and (later) /æː/ for Wallis. Based on solid orthoepic evidence, ME /ɛː/ is continued as EMoE /ɛː/, which means there was no contrastive /eː/ in the phonological space at the time. Phonologically speaking, of course, we can say there is /eː/, which happens to be pronounced [ɛː] (contrasted with /iː/ and /æː/ in the front dimension). It is only later that /eː/, which by this time was probably already [eː], merged with /iː/ (meet-meat merger). Komáromi has Hungarian é /eː/ for the vowel of name (14), as in kéz ‘hand’. The collated evidence from the most reliable orthoepists is summarised by Lass (1989: 82), reproduced in (2) below. (2) ME /a(ː)/ and /ɛː/ in EMoE Hart 1569

Wallis 1653

Cooper 1687

ME /ɛː/ leaf

ɛː

eː

ME /aː/ same

aː

æː

ɛː

ME /a/ Sam

The evidence for ME /ɛː/ in words like seat, season, seal needs some comment. In the part of the grammar dealing with the diphthongs (or rather digraphs), he says that the vowels of seat form one syllable, but only one vowel (= graph) is pronounced with a ‘clear’ e (17–19), suggesting a long high-mid monophthong, as expected. He also gives season as seson, not séson, but this may be due to the slipshod practices of his typesetter. In the Hungarian terminology of the grammars written in the 17–19th centuries, ‘clear’ or ‘acute’ is used for the more ‘cardinal’ jaw positions associated with (perceived) long pronunciations, like /iː/, /eː/, /aː/, /oː/, /uː/, ‘obscure’ (or ‘dark’) for vowels like /ɛ/ and /ɒ/ or the short vowels /i/, /u/, /o/ (C. Vladár & Markó 2021a, 2021b). If we take all this to mean that the vowel of season was a long monophthong, we still cannot be sure about the quality of the vowel. Komáromi had only one long front vowel in his language phonologically: /eː/ (there was no /ɛː/). As we can see, he used the same Hungarian vowel to describe the vowels of both name and season. This cannot be correct, as shown by the later non-merger of the two: the vowel of season merged with /iː/, the vowel of name raised ultimately to /eː/ (as traditionally understood). Of course, the two originate in two distinct ME vowels. He does not, however, describe the vowel of name with the Hungarian á /aː/, which is a front low vowel (as in kár ‘damage’, identified as the vowel of man). This is expected given that he was a witness of the language contemporaneously with Wallis and Copper, not Hart, who lived a century earlier. The same Hungarian é /eː/ is detected in declare (for the ⟨e⟩ in the prefix) (14), with either a stressed or an unstressed verbal prefix (cf. Lass 1999). This obviously

Starčević, Early Modern English Pronunciation – The Evidence from Hungarian 11

shows declare to be a recent loan (or a recently le-loaned) word from Latin preserving the ‘original’ continental value of e undisturbed by the GVS. All in all, the quality of the vowels in name and season are not distinguished, but with the benefit of hindsight, we know that they must have represented two distinct front vowels lower than /iː/, and higher than /aː/ (recall Hungarian á above, a low front vowel), triangulating them as /eː/ in season and /ɛː/ in name. It is possible, of course, that he encountered both old-fashioned and more advanced pronunciation of the two vowels (season with /iː/ and name with /eː/). As for ME /aj/ (itself a merger of earlier ME /ej/ and /æj/ in words like maid/afraid), Komáromi says the diphthong (= digraph) ai sounds like an ‘obscure’ ei, to be read as meid, afreid (18). He says way also has ‘obscure’ e (not ei!) (14), as in Hungarian kert /kɛrt/ ‘garden’. The same obscure sound is identified for the stressed vowel in blessed (14). The two cannot have had the same vowel, of course, as shown by their later development: blessed contained a short monophthong, maid/way/afraid, in all likelihood, either /ɛː/ or /ɛj/, but not the /eː/ of season, which he would have described as a ‘clear’ e. Hart (1569) consistently has /ɛː/ (his ⟨e.>) for ME /aj/ (the same vowel he has for ME /ɛː/ in words like deal, which is a problem of representations for Hart’s system of diphthongs, rectified partly in the 1570 edition of his book, see Jespersen 1907: 33– 42). Gil (1619) criticises these monophthongal pronunciations described in Hart, produced by the Mopsea. We have seen above that Komáromi could not discern the phonological difference between /eː/ and /ɛː/ in English. We can, however, surmise that he would easily have identified the vowel as a diphthong in maid, had it been one, in the same manner as he managed to identify the diphthongal vowel in night as /ɛj/ (comparing it to fejsze).11 In addition, the vowel must be different from season and name, as he does not identify this vowel with the Hungarian é /eː/. We must conclude that the vowel he describes is /ɛː/. But then the same vowel must be found in name, as this vowel is found merged with the vowel of maid. Trusting that Komáromi could recall his data from a ten-year lapse of any direct contact with the language, he cannot be one of the Mopsea, as he does not give us any hint of a merger of ME /ɛː/ and /aj/: season, seat12 are said to contain a ‘clear’ e, suggesting /eː/, whereas maid is said to contain an ‘obscure’ ei13 11

ai is given as one of the ‘real diphthongs’ of English (diphthong here meaning a diphthongal vowel shown with two letters), so we are at a loss as to why it is not explicitly identified as the vowel of night, that is, as a vowel + glide sequence of Hungarian fejsze. Of course, from a theoretical point of view, we would not want this, as then the need to explain why the vowels of night and maid never merged would emerge instead. The digraph ea is identified as a non-real diphthong of English (19) by Komáromi, meaning the vowel was a (long) monophthong. Identified as a real diphthong (meaning the digraph ai has both its parts pronounced). How widespread the diphthong was or whether it showed just the residual remains of earlier EMoE /æj/ is difficult to answer. However, by the end of the 17th century it was lost (Lass 1999).

Starčević, Early Modern English Pronunciation – The Evidence from Hungarian 12

(which is not identified as the /ej/ of night, or Hungarian fejsze). To complicate matters, name is claimed to have a ‘clear’ e (similarly to season), identified as Hu é /eː/ (kéz). Based on the orthoepical evidence summarised (3), and the later developments, we must conclude Komáromi gives us a somewhat skewed picture of EMoE, as he was not able to distinguish English [eː] in season from [ɛː] in name/maid.14 Whether this opposition was lacking in the dialect of Hungarian he spoke making him unable to tell the qualities apart in English, too, is a difficult question, which we cannot answer here. What seems relevant for his grammar is that [eː] and [ɛː] are conflated into the same [eː]. He also seems to have been misled by the digraph ⟨ai⟩, pronounced as a monophthong [ɛː], and also strengthened in his conviction that name had a long monophthong by the single letter ⟨a⟩ (originating in ME /aː/). (3) The front vowels of EMoE for Komáromi and the orthoepists 1664 (Komáromi)

Expected

(based on Hungarian)

(based on orthoepists)

ME /iː/

Hu ej /ɛj/

/ɛj/

ME /ɛː/ (season)

Hu é /eː/

/eː/ (Cooper 1687)

ME /aː/ (name)

Hu é /eː/

ME /aj/ (maid, way) ‘obscure’ ei: /ɛː/ (?)

/ɛː/ (Cooper 1687) 15

/ɛː/ (Cooper 1687)16

3.5. ME /ɔː/ in EMoE The ME ‘open o’ is difficult to characterise as orthoepists do not operate with the front/back dimension (Lass 1989). Wallis has palatal, guttural and labial vowels, which splits the back vowels into labials and gutturals based on the salience of lip-rounding. Wallis has ō apertum, which is probably a weakly rounded /ɒ/, both long and short (fall, haul, sod, holly). There is an ô rotundum as well, found in words like boat, whole, oat, etc. (< ME /ɔː/). Lass 1989) concludes that by 1650 there was some movement away from earlier /ɔː/ towards more closed /oː/, if not totally attained. Cooper a few decades later has descriptions that triangulate /oː/ (and /eː/ on the front grid). It seems the second phase of the GVS was complete by the end of the 17th century, and this concludes a span of almost 300 years over which the effects of the GVS were played out.

15 16

A very similar merger of /a/ and /ɛ/ is found in the speech of many learners of Hungarian: bad and bed have the same [ɛ] vowel. But not /ɛj/ (cf. night) or /ɛ/, cf. blessed. Both Wallis and Cooper have residual /æj/’s for ME /aj/ though, so Komáromi may after all have heard a diphthong in maid on some occasions (Lass 1999: 94).

Starčević, Early Modern English Pronunciation – The Evidence from Hungarian 13

Komáromi cites chosen (< ME /ɔː/) as having the vowel of Hungarian ól ‘enclosure, pen’, ó[l]tár ‘altar’ /oː/. Of course, we cannot be sure if this was not /ɔː/ given the supposition that Komáromi would not have been able to differentiate the two qualities. There also existed a diphthong of ME origin (from a number of sources) that ultimately merged with ME /ɔː/: /ow/ (e.g., know, blow, bow). Lass (1999: 94) concludes that by 1650 this diphthong was merged with /oː/ (< ME /ɔː/). Not surprisingly, we find that Komáromi transliterates bow as bo (suggesting /oː/ or /ɔː/), similarly to la for law (such w’s are called ‘silent sounds’ in the grammar). Komáromi was thus a witness to the last episode of the GVS. 4. Conclusion We can see that Anglicvm spicilegium offers an interesting window into EMoE in the final decades of a long-protracted series of changes starting in late Middle English and lasting until the end of the 17th century, known (somewhat falsely) as the Great Vowel Shift. The vowels that are postulated by more conservative analysts receive support from Komáromi, such as ME /iː/ and /uː/ that are found as /ej/ and /ow/. There is no support to be drawn from the description of the vowels that /ej/ and /ow/ had progressed to a schwa in their first vowel, but the author may have been immersed in traditional circles too much to notice a new set of diphthongs (/əj/ and / əw/). We can say with some certainty that he would have been able to discern the schwa in these diphthongs based on Hungarian. A very interesting (allophonic) change is described for /ej/ and /ow/: when unstressed, they appear as /aj/ and /aw/ (no independent evidence has been found for this, however). We have also pinpointed an inaccuracy in the description of the vowels spelt ⟨ea⟩ (season) and long ⟨a⟩ (name): they cannot have contained the same /eː/ given the failure of merger in their post-EMoE history. References Backley, Philip. 2011. An Introduction to Element Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Balázs, Debóra. 2011. Komáromi Csipkés György: Speculum Poeticum. In: Bartók, Zsófia Ágnes, Dobozy Nóra Emőke, Förköli Gábor, Lovas Borbála, Nádor Zsófia and Szilágyi Emőke Rita (eds.). Mű & Szerző. Fiatal kutatók konferenciája tanulmánykötet [Opus & author. Proceedings of junior researchers]. Budapest. 29–38. Balogh, Roland József. 2022. Komáromi Csipkés György Anglicvm Spicilegiuma mint nyelvészeti kutatások forrása [Komáromi Csipkés György’s Anglicvm Spicilegium as a source of linguistic research]. Unpublished MA thesis. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE). Bellot, Jacques. 1580. Le maistre d’escole anglois. (Reproduced in Spira, T. 1912. Neudrucke Fruhneuenglischer Grammatiken: Le Maistre D’Escole Anglois (1580) (Volume 7). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. C. Vladár, Zsuzsa. 2007. Utak a morfémához: nyelvelmélet és terminológia a korai magyar grammatikákban [Ways to the morpheme: theory of language and terminology in the early Hungarian grammars]. In: Gecső, Tamás and Sárdi Csilla (eds.) Nyelvelmélet –

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