New Quantity System facts for kids

The New Quantity System, also called the Great British Vowel Shift, was a big change in how people spoke the Common Brittonic language. This language was spoken in Britain a long, long time ago.

Around the middle of the first millennium AD (which is about 500-600 AD), the way vowels were pronounced completely changed. Before this, the length of a vowel (whether it was long or short) was very important for telling words apart. This was like how we say "ship" (short 'i') versus "sheep" (long 'ee').

After the New Quantity System, the length of a vowel became less important. Instead, the quality of the vowel (how it sounded, like 'a' vs. 'ah') became the main way to tell words apart. Vowel length then depended more on where the stress was in a word and how the word was built (its syllable structure).

When Did This Change Happen?

Historians and language experts have looked at when the New Quantity System took place.

Dating the Shift

• Kenneth H. Jackson, a famous language expert, believes this big change happened around 600 AD.
• Kim McCone thinks the process took quite a while. He suggests it happened at some point during the 600s AD (the seventh century).

Why Did This Change Happen?

Scientists have different ideas about what caused this major shift in the Brittonic language.

Possible Reasons for the Shift

• Kenneth Jackson noticed that these changes were similar to how vowel lengths changed in Vulgar Latin, which was the everyday Latin spoken by ordinary people. He thought the Brittonic New Quantity System was caused by a "re-arrangement of the syllabic division." This means how words were broken into syllables changed.
• John Morris-Jones believed the change happened because the last syllables of words were disappearing. He argued that vowels became longer to make up for the loss of these endings.
• Kim McCone described the new system as a way for the language to keep a steady rhythm, a concept called 'isochrony'. He explained that when vowel length stopped being important for meaning, the language adjusted. Some short vowels became longer because they were "too short" for their place in a word. At the same time, some long vowels became shorter because they were "too long" for syllables that weren't stressed.
• McCone also suggested that earlier changes in long vowels made vowel length less important. Then, short vowels also changed a lot. Eventually, vowel length became something you could "predict" based on where the word's stress was, rather than being a fixed part of the word's sound.

How Did the Rules Work?

The New Quantity System had specific rules about when vowels became long or short. These rules applied in Late Common Brittonic, before the main stress in words moved to a different syllable.

Vowel Length Rules

• Vowels were long in stressed syllables at the end of a word. This also happened if the vowel was before a single soft (lenis) consonant.
• Vowels were short if they were before hard (fortis) consonants, double consonants (like 'nn' or 'mm'), or groups of consonants (like 'st' or 'nd').

This meant that a vowel's length in the old Brittonic language didn't always match its length in the new system:

• In stressed syllables, old short vowels became long if they were at the end of a word or before a soft consonant.
  • For example, the old Brittonic word *sĕnŏs (meaning 'old') became *hen [heːn] in Late Brittonic, with a long 'e' sound.
• In any syllable, old long vowels became short if they were before hard consonants, double consonants, or groups of consonants.
  • For example, the old Brittonic word *wīskā (meaning 'clothing') became *wisk [wisk] in Late Brittonic, with a short 'i' sound.
• Sometimes, originally long vowels stayed long if they followed the new rules.
  • For example, *sīrŏs (meaning 'long') became *hir [hiːr], keeping its long 'i' sound.
• Similarly, some short vowels stayed short.
  • For example, *pĕnnŏn (meaning 'head') became *penn [penː], keeping its short 'e' sound.

Unstressed Syllables

• Kenneth Jackson thought that vowels in unstressed syllables (like the second-to-last syllable) had to be short, even if they were before a single soft consonant.
• However, Peter Schrijver suggested that it's possible vowel length differences could still happen in these unstressed positions.

Later Changes to Vowel Length

Around the 1000s AD (the eleventh century), another important change happened. The main stress in words with more than one syllable moved from the last syllable to the second-to-last syllable. This happened in Old Welsh, Old Cornish, and Old Breton at about the same time.

Impact of Stress Shift

• After the stress moved, the vowels in the final syllables of longer words became short, or stayed short, because they were no longer stressed.
• Double consonants in these final syllables also became single consonants.
• The vowels in the new stressed syllable (the second-to-last one) became either long (like in modern Breton) or half-long (like in modern Welsh). This happened unless they were followed by a hard consonant, a double consonant, or a group of consonants.
• Vowels in short, single-syllable words that were stressed stayed long.