Vowel Breaking - Old English

Old English

There are two processes in Old English that are examples of harmonic vowel breaking, called Old English breaking and back umlaut.

Old English breaking is a process in prehistoric Old English whereby stressed short and long i, e, æ become short and long diphthongs spelled io, eo, ea (respectively), when followed by h or by r, l + another consonant (short vowels only), and sometimes w (only for certain short vowels).

Examples are:

• PG *fallan → feallan "fall"
• PG *erþō → eorþe "earth"

Back umlaut is a process in late prehistoric Old English whereby short i, e, æ become short diphthongs spelled io, eo, ea (respectively) before a back vowel in the next syllable, if the intervening consonant is of a certain nature. The specific nature of which consonants trigger back umlaut and which block them varies from dialect to dialect.