How come we write drought and draught but pronounce [draut] and [dra:ft] or write enough and though but pronounce [i’naf] and [đou]?

Question

How come we write drought and draught but pronounce [draut] and [dra: ft] or write enough and though but pronounce [i’naf] and [đou]?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 10 '18 at 13:56

1

Short answer: the Great Vowel Shift.

Long answer: before the Great Vowel Shift began around 1400, there was a phoneme /x/ (written gh or ȝh) in Middle English. By Modern English, /x/ had either mutated to /f/ or had become silent in standard dialects.

Long vowels had generally shifted to become various diphthongs. Vowels are notoriously slippery characters in the continuing tale of the GVS.

answered Nov 10 '18 at 13:56

Mark Byron Daedalus

11

The long answer of yours is not very long. – Konrad Gajewski Nov 10 '18 at 14:31

How come we write drought and draught but pronounce [draut] and [dra:ft] or write enough and though but pronounce [i’naf] and [đou]?

1 Answers1