The Great Vowel Shift in the North of England

The aim of this chapter is first to broadly situate the modern dialects of northern England in their historical context by reviewing a selection of the key phonological features which have historically distinguished the North from the rest of the country; having laid this groundwork, I will then explore a case study which demonstrates the relevance of the modern northern dialects to the study of historical linguistic processes. Data from Kolb’s Linguistic atlas of England: Phonological atlas of the Northern region is used to map the northern dialect outcomes of the English Great Vowel Shift, which reveals regular geographic patterns that aid our understanding of the structure and chronology of the shift.