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.
Read more about this topic: Vowel Breaking
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