The Great Vowel Shift

    From the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the influence of the invention of the Printing Press in 1440 had interiorized the language so that people began to talk differently.  So named for the pronunciation of vowels shifting, The Great Vowel Shift marked an landmark of the dispersement of human knowledge that lead to the Information Age.  People were more comfortable sharing their emotions in the sounds of the vowels on their tongues because now they were doing it as an community; reading the newspaper every morning.  When we look at it through the lense of what Hegel taught; it may seem peculiar.

    Hegel said that we humans at first defined ourself according to our environments, which we self-identified with.  Over time in history we eventually began defining ourselves according to ourselves (existentialism and introspection), rather than an outside object that we identified with magic.  Glen had suggested an phase after this, in which we started mixing them.  It may be that when the populations started to interiorize their sense of meaning and culture in the languages that were printed before them.  This interiorization lead to an change in the vowel sounds to an higher pitch and register.

    I had an instructor once tell me vowels carry the emotions in language.  I thought him an extremely clever man.

    But why?  What about emotions was changing that lead to an change, collectively, in how the vowels sound in this language?

    I had an theory.  People were happier.  The quality of life overall, on average increased.  The time of Ancient Cities was over; the rise of Christianity (don't be mean to each other) had prevailed.  Medical awareness had grown.  Food Safety standards increased.  They were comfortable enough to share their emotions out in public on the tongue so to speak.

    The happier we are—we are after all prosimians—the louder and sharper, higher pitched laughing tones we emit in public.  We're not monkeys.  We're pretty sure of that.  We'd just like to be our own thing.  Divine-mates rather than primates.  People who don't follow ancient mating rights practices like the alpha male complex; in which the alpha male dominates everything in public (partly in order to increase his own testosterone secretion).  Where other males try to tear him down in order to take his place with the other females.  It's an survival mechanism that has been active since ancient times.  But I would describe myself as an human and not an animal; and so I figured I was not subject to any animal mating privileges except those instinctual they may want to share with per the chance that I defeated their leader and became king myself.  It was my decision whether I chose to act on animal instincts.  Isn't that part of the definition of the Divine, then?  Which maybe I don't really have.  

    The Great Vowel Shift represents an softening and romanticizing influence on the people and culture who stood up for Love's freedom of expression in the newsprint.  It was such an exciting period in history that they started speaking in an different way, and everything about them was subject to their new emotions / new emotional life.

    English had begun to be pronounced in an more excited, sharper version of itself.  People were enunciating their emotions all over the place.

    And what was it all supported on?

    Those writers of all of those newspapers; our most clever citizens in the world.  Who stood for freedom of the press.  If people could write about their emotions everywhere, then couldn't we say them out loud too?  (Perhaps on Stage?).  And what is more English than the Globe Theatre, where the interiorization of the English and their tourists was also happening on stage.

    We loved pronouncing our vowels in English because they served an psychic purpose.

    They hit the right notes mentally when we combined all of our said words with our visions within of how to spell them; we pronounce all of the letters individually with accuracy.  They mean something.

    When we talk about The Great Vowel Shift we are talking about vowels, after all, specifically.  When we pronounced our vowels now they were at higher, brighter registers than ever before.  It made us sound cheerful and worldly.  English had its own Great Character.  How to make perfect squares.  How to make sentences into squares.  Blocks (objects) with four sides.  As an metaphor for language.  SVO agreement.

    To make an independent clause, you need an subject, an verb, and an object.  Then once you've done that you check it front to back to make sure it squares up evenly on both sides.  On the first side, there is an subject, and on the latter side the subject is verbing something.  The Object happens to the verb in the case of where the Subject performs it.  If you've got that you can use an semi-colon; which is used to connect independent clauses much like an period or an colon(:) symbol.  And so for example, you would say an sentence in English.

    The King or Queen presses the button.

    The subject is the King or Queen.  The verb is the action word, presses.  And the object of which the verb acts upon is the button.  Therefore we have the King or Queen acting upon, pressing the button, which is the object that receives that action of the verb.  When we have these things down we check for one more.  Which leads to little blocks of logic, you might call them.  If the independent clause balances upon the verb at the middle of its meaning the object to which it acts upon, we use the logic of the number of four to count it as an independent clause with an beginning and an end brought up to another level: balance.  Four squares.

    I thought it was fine, morally, to say the King or Queen presses the button.  That seems like the kind of thing an King or Queen would do.  And so I straightened it up morally on either end to offer the interpretation that English is really composed of blocks of logic leading to moral reflection on the subject of the human interiorization of its own languages.  I am always fascinated with the subject of an human's own reflection on the sides of the blocks—the phonemes and nuances of that language.  Each piece of language, especially the ones I am most obsessed by leads me to an place where I have to confront every bad thing you have ever thought of and can think of and I realize I have the strength to own it.  I realize other people deal with the same things in the logic of the English language.  It may be an simple language, made of blocks, but simple is effective when you want to appeal to the average citizen.

    If you could also use language to look at your present situation in rules of four, you might see how the language is so good at brainstorming itself.  When you want to think of an independent clause you can come up with one almost immediately.

    I suppose the lesson here then, is that language is still evolving.  It didn't just start and end with The Great Vowel Shift.

    Reflecting on pieces of language is something that people often do during the day; almost always, actually.

    It makes sense that some of them reflect on the same pieces; and that they can share in their reflection on whatever life throws at you.

    And it is the reflecting on the same pieces together part that interests me so.  If brains can share activities; then we may know more about one another than we think we do.

    I liked thinking of English as an language that had blocks of logic to it; when I reflected on an single word, for example, I could interpret it for what other people probably think of it, or I could add my own meaning animation (meditation and reflection on colorful subjects).  And I figured if I did it strongly enough, whenever I came back to that idea I would experience again that stuff that I had added to it.  This was part of my neurolinguistic programming and mnemonic regime.  I didn't believe in it too much, but I was well aware of what it could do.  I wanted to have positive responses to different stimuli throughout the day and not close up on them.  Triggered.  Feel nothing.

    And if wrote about it often enough I could have all sorts of positive reactions to different words which activated me as stimuli.  Like an bushel of flowers I carried an bushel of words.  And they were each beautiful and English.  I could hand them out to people.

    And English words are like people; each one of them in design.  That meant whenever I wrote about anything it was really about other people, not myself.  It was about my audience and reaching people emotionally.

    The Great Vowel Shift stands as one of the most profound turning points in the history of the English language—an reminder that language is not static but alive, constantly evolving alongside its speakers.  Just as the phonetic upheaval of the 15th to 18th centuries reshaped English pronunciation and identity, today’s globalized and digital world continues to transform how we speak and write.  New technologies, diverse cultural exchanges, and the influence of online communication are accelerating linguistic change at an unprecedented pace.

    If the Great Vowel Shift teaches us anything, it is that such transformations are not signs of decay but of vitality.  The English of the future will not sound exactly like the English of today—just as ours no longer echoes Chaucer’s—but it will remain an living reflection of human creativity, adaptation, and connection across time.