Note that Middle English is not a single uniform language; the term refers to the multifarious varieties of English spoken in Britain from 1100–1500 C.E., meaning there was plenty of variation and change in pronunciation across time and space. Unless otherwise noted, the pronunciation discussed here and given in entries represents the language of Chaucer, London Middle English of the late 1300s.
Additionally, our knowledge of Middle English pronunciation leaves much to be desired; one major difficulty is the paucity of contemporary sources covering it, though the Ormulum is invaluable here. Instead, we must often resort to indirect sources, such as loans, modern dialectal reflexes, and orthographic variation, which can sometimes be unclear and ambiguous, if not outright contradictory. With such imperfect information, there are sometimes significant disagreements on how certain sounds or words were pronounced; keep in mind that the pronunciation detailed below represents but one opinion, though selected areas of dispute have been marked throughout.
↑ 1.01.11.21.3/p/, /t/, /t͡ʃ/, /k/ were possibly [pʰ], [tʰ], [t͡ʃʰ], [kʰ] in some positions, as in modern English and German.
↑ 2.02.12.2/t/, /d/, /n/ may have been dental [t̪], [d̪], [n̪].
^ The nature of Middle English /l/ is disputed; a distinction between non-velarised [l] and velarised [ɫ] similar to the one between modern English “clear l” and “dark l” or Latin l exilis or l pinguis has been hypothesised for Middle English. However, there is a conflicting view that Middle English /l/ was clear/non-velarised in all positions.
^ Words which have /ŋ/ in modern English usually have the cluster /nɡ/ (pronounced [ŋɡ]) in Middle English.
^ The articulatory value of Middle English /r/ is unknown; it could have already become an approximant, at least after vowels, but the change of /r/ to /ɹ/ is more likely to be a modern English development.
^ Greek theta is usually nativised as /t/ in learned borrowings; e.g. in theater/ˌtɛːˈaːtər/. The modern English pronunciation of these words with /θ/ is a spelling pronunciation, reinforced by the modern Greek pronunciation; the older pronunciation is preserved in modern thyme, Thomas.
^ In Middle English, <wh> represented a sequence /hw/, pronounced [ʍ]; though this sometimes tended to be replaced with /w/, as in most modern English dialects. In Northern Middle English, the cluster /hw/ sometimes instead became (or was all along) /xw/; this can still be heard in conservative varieties of Scots and Scottish English.
^ Only usual, non-conditioned reflexes are shown here; special developments (e.g. before historic /r/) or dialects which develop differently from Standard English are not dealt with.
↑ 9.09.1The sounds represented here as /ɛ/, /ɔ/ could have actually been mid [e̞], [o̞] or (less likely) mid-high [e], [o].
↑ 10.010.1The majority of linguists believe that /i/, /u/ had already been laxed to [ɪ], [ʊ] by the Middle English period; others (most notably Roger Lass) have disputed this by putting forwards what they believe to be orthoepic evidence that the laxing occurred in the Early Modern English period. Furthermore, realisations of Germanic *i *u as [i], [u] have been attested for the modern English traditional dialect of Dentdale in Cumbria (traditionally in Yorkshire), South Brabant Dutch, and Viennese German, though it is not impossible that these are developments of earlier sounds of the [ɪ], [ʊ] type.
^ In many cases, Middle English has unreduced vowels where modern English has reduced them to /ə/ or /ɪ/. Final /ə/, from Old English unstressed final short vowels, gradually falls silent over the Middle English period.
^ The existence of a distinct reduced vowel sound in Middle English has been disputed by Roger Lass, who asserts that "where there was merger" of Old English unstressed vowels, it resulted in a sound "identical to one of the stressed short [v]owels".
↑ 13.013.113.213.3Wiktionary's model of Middle English pronunciation makes a distinction between /ɛ̝ː/, /ɔ̝ː/ (from Old English long vowels ǣ ēa ā/æː/, /æɑ̯ː/, /ɑː/) and /ɛ̞ː/, /ɔ̞ː/ (from open-syllable lengthening of /ɛ/, /ɔ/ in the older language). This is since the pairs /ɛ̝ː///ɛ̞ː/ and /ɔ̝ː///ɔ̞ː/ are kept apart by the rhymes of poets such as Chaucer and Gower and in modern English traditional dialects (e.g. that of Windhill in Yorkshire), though they likely fell together soon after open-syllable lengthening occured in many localities; the plain symbols /ɛː/, /ɔː/ are used when the exact identity of the vowel is uncertain or in older entries.
^ A few Middle English words with /ɛː/ have modern English reflexes with /eɪ/ rather than /iː/, such as break and yea, preserving an alternate development.
^ The shift to /aʊ/ is blocked before labial consonants (soup, room), before preconsonantal /r/ (course, gourd), and after /j/ (you, youth). The regular development before /ɡ/, /k/ is unclear, but is possibly /ʌ/ (puck, ruck, suck; stook is a Northernism).
^ Used to represent the outcome of earlier prevocalic /eːj/, which eventually coalesced with /iː/ in East Midland Middle English and /eː/ in Northern Middle English.
^ Some sources on Middle English pronunciation distinguish /eu̯/, which coalesces with /iu̯/ everywhere during the 13th century.
^ Though it is generally agreed that Old French /y/, /yi̯/ were generally adapted into Middle English as /yː/ in certain dialects that otherwise had that sound (see below) but /iu̯/ more generally, some linguists believe that certain prestige London Middle English varieties without /yː/ in inherited vocabulary acquired it from adaptations of Old French words with these sounds (as a so-called "loan phoneme"). Mossé instead claims that the modern pronunciations of such words with /juː/, /uː/ already existed in Middle English; this to be rejected on the basis of Early Modern and modern dialectal pronunciations with something like [ɪʊ̯] and the virtual nonexistence of pronunciations such as */fɹaʊt/fruit. The rhymes he adduces such as nature:emperour instead rest on a lower-class adaptation of Old French /y/ as /uː/ (i.e. /naːˈtuːr/:/ɛmpəˈruːr/).
^ Stress often falls later in the word than in modern English, such as in /ɛmpəˈruːr/emperour.
The following symbols represent sounds that are nonexistent in Chaucer's East Midland Middle English, but which are commonly encountered in other stages or varieties of Middle English.
^ Although the existence of /ɣ/ is universally acknowledged for Early Middle English, later Northern Middle English spellings with -gh- are usually interpreted as representing products of orthographic tradition rather than actual pronunciation. Wiktionary departs from this hypothesis due to the existence of modern Yorkshire and Lancashire traditional dialect forms such as /meːɡ/maig(“maw”), implying that /ɣ/ was retained for some speakers in some environments throughout the period before becoming subject to fortition in modern English. These environments presumably excluded word-final position, where /ɣ/ was devoiced on the evidence of modern forms such as muff/mʊf/, /mʊx/ "hay-mow"; forms such as /meːɡ/ and /mʊf/ possibly reflect levelling of paradigms which would've regularly yielded /maf/:/meːɡz/ and /mʊf/:/mɪʊ̯ɡz/.
^ Atypical or uncertain equivalents or developments contingent upon some condition have not been shown here.
↑ 3.03.13.23.33.4As the spellings that would be expected on Old English and Old French orthographic models for /œ/, /œː/, /øː/ (eo, eu, oe, ue) and /y/, /yː/ (u, ui, uy) are sometimes interchanged, both a merger between /œ/, /y/ and one involving /øː/, /yː/ (and implicitly /œː/) are sometimes postulated, though another opinion is that the interchange was (or at least might have been) merely orthographic.
^ In Southern and West Midland Middle English, /yː/ is a retention of Old English /yː/ and thus equivalent to East Midland /iː/, while in Northern Middle English, it reflects an earlier /oː/ that remains in the East Midlands. Fulk suggests that since borrowings from Old French where /yː/ is expected often fail to rhyme words with a reflex of Old English /yː/, Old English /yː/ may have developed into /ʏː/ in Southern and West Midland Middle English. However, another solution is to posit that the relevant words of Old French origin had /iu̯/ due to mediation through a dialect without /yː/.
^ Although no analogue to it is encountered in the handbooks, Wiktionary has introduced the symbol /ɛi̯/ to represent the Northern Middle English outcome of earlier prevocalic /ɛːj/ as it shows a distinct patterning of reflexes in the modern traditional dialects of Northern England. Dobson's claim that /ɛːj/ became /ɛː/ is inconsistent with the evidence; for instance, the vowel in words such as key and neigh is distinct from /ɛː/ (and /æi̯/, /ei̯/) in the dialect of Hackness in Yorkshire (Cowling posits that the relevant forms are spelling pronunciations, but this is an unfounded assumption). Even where it does coalesce with /ɛː/, it does so with /ɛ̞ː/, not /ɛ̝ː/, and most instances of /ɛːj/ can be assumed to be /ɛ̝ːj/ since they develop from Old English /æːj/ (note that /æ͜ɑːj///æ͜ɑːɣ/ develops to /eːj/). Finally, an immediate development to /ɛː/ would be inconsistent with the development of /eːj/ to /ei̯/.
^ Likely a rare and somewhat ephemeral sound in the south West Midlands varieties where it is found; its only regular source is Old English -ĕow-, as in seowian(“to sew”), though see tithe.
^ As with /iu̯/, a sound with a lower first element (/øu̯/) that merged into this sound is sometimes mentioned in handbooks, though some varieties probably never made any distinction between the two.
Brunner, Karl (1963), “II: Phonology”, in Grahame Johnson, transl., An Outline of Middle English Grammar[1], Oxford: Basil Blackwell, translation of Abriss der mittelenglischen Grammatik (in German), →ISBN, →OCLC, § 1-38, pages 5-44; reprinted 1965.
Cowling, G[eorge] H. (1915), “III. The Development of the M.E. Vowels in stressed Syllables—The English Element”, in The Dialect of Hackness (North-East Yorkshire) (Cambridge Archeological and Ethnological Series)[2], Part I, Cambridge: at the University Press, →OCLC, § 177, pages 52-53.
Hedevind, Bertil (1967), The Dialect of Dentdale in the West Riding of Yorkshire (Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia; 5)[5], Uppsala: Appelbergs Boktryckeri AB, →OCLC.
Jordan, Richard (1974), Eugene Crook, transl., Handbook of the Middle English Grammar: Phonology (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica; 218)[6], The Hague: Mouton & Co. N.V., →DOI.
Kristensson, Gillis (1967), A survey of Middle English dialects, 1290-1350: the six northern counties and Lincolnshire (Lund Studies in English; 35)[8], Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, →OCLC, pages 202-206.
Lass, Roger (2009), “On Schwa: Synchronic Prelude and Historical Fugue”, in Donka Minkova, editor, Phonological Weakness in English: from Old to Present-Day English (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change), Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 47-77.
Mossé, Fernand (1952), James A. Walker, transl., A Handbook of Middle English[9], Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, translation of Manuel du l'Anglais de Moyen Age des Origines au XIVe Siècle (in French), →OCLC.
Stenroos, Merja (2019), “The Development of Old English eo/ēo and the Systematicity of Middle English Spelling”, in Rhona Alcorn, Joanna Kopaczyk, Bettelou Los and Benjamin Molineaux, editors, Historical Dialectology in the Digital Age, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, pages 133-153.
