The M.E. pronunciation was widely different from the present, especially in the case of the vowel-sounds. The sounds of the vowels were nearly as in French and Italian. They can be denoted by phonetic invariable symbols, here distinguished by being enclosed within marks of parenthesis. I shall here use the same symbols as are employed in my Principles of English Etymology. Of course, these symbols must be used as defined. Thus the symbol (oo), being defined to mean the sound of the German o in so, will not be understood by the reader who pronounces it like the oo in root.
[§ 19]. Vowels. (aa), as a in father; (a) short, as in aha! (ae), open long e, as a in Mary; (e), open short e, as e in bed; (ee), close long e, as e in veil[[19]]; (i) short, as French i in fini, or nearly, as Eng. i in fin; (ii), as (ee) in deep: (ao), open long o, as aw in saw, or o in glory; (o), open short o, as o in not; (oo), close long o, as o in note, or o in German so; (u), as u in full; (uu), as oo in fool; (y), as F. u in F. écu; (yy), as long G. ü in grün. Also (ə), as the final a in China.
Diphthongs. (ai), as y in fly; (au), as ow in now; (ei), as ei in veil, or ey in prey; (oi), as oi in boil.
[§ 20]. Consonants (special). (k), as c in cat; (s), as c in city; (ch), as ch in church; (tch), as in catch; (th), as voiceless th in thin; (dh), as voiced th in thine. I also use (h), when not initial, to denote a guttural sound, like G. ch in Nacht, Licht, but weaker, and slightly varying with the preceding vowel. This sound was usually denoted by (gh) in Chaucer MSS., but was then rapidly becoming extinct, with a lengthening of the preceding vowel. Thus the word light, originally (liht), with short i and a strong guttural, was about to become (liit), in which the guttural has disappeared. At the end of the fourteenth century, the vowel was already half-long, and the guttural sound was slight; yet Chaucer
never rimes such words as bright, light, right, with words such as despyt, spite[[20]]; cf. p. [xxviii]. l. 5.
[§ 21]. An accent is denoted by (·), as in M.E. name (naa·mə), where the a is long and accented, and the final e is like a in China.
By help of these symbols, it is possible to explain the meaning of the M.E. symbols employed by the scribe of the Ellesmere MS. of the Canterbury Tales; which furnishes a sufficient approximate guide for the spelling here adopted throughout. The scribe of the Fairfax MS., whence many of the Minor Poems are taken, agrees with the 'Ellesmere' scribe in essentials, though he makes a large number of grammatical mistakes, owing to the loss (in pronunciation) of the final e in the fifteenth century.
[§ 22]. Symbols. The following is a list of the sounds which the symbols denote.
The forms in thick type are the forms actually written and printed; the forms within parenthesis denote the spoken sounds.
a short; (a). Ex. al (al); as (az). We have no clear evidence to shew that the modern a (æ) in cat (kæt) occurs anywhere in Chaucer; though it is possible that the sound occurred in Southern English, without any special symbol to represent it[[21]].