If I am not mistaken, the 'eo' diphthong was very common in Old English, and occurred in a lot of words, however this diphthong disappeared by the Modern English period, why was that? Notice that in words like 'freond' and 'beorc', it simply changed into a different vowel, like 'friend' and 'birch', and in the few in which it survived, its pronunciation changed, as in 'people'. Might anyone be able to give an explanation for this?
asked Apr 28, 2021 at 8:26
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4questions of why are not generally answerable. Sounds just change and, especially with vowels and diphthongs, this is largely unpredictable. People however is not a word inherited from Old English, but a later borrowing, so its spelling is unrelated to the fate of the OE eo diphthong– TristanApr 28, 2021 at 9:12
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4Birch is not the same word as beorc. Beorc is from PG *berkō-, the base word, whereas birch (OE bi(e)rc̊) is from the derived form *birkijō- (= *berko-jō-). The OE word beorc disappeared eventually, ousted by the derived form.– Janus Bahs JacquetApr 28, 2021 at 9:54
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1It's only the Old English 'beorc' that had the diphthong 'eo' which is short, in 'frēond' the vowel is different, it's /e͜oː/, long. Naturally, a short vowel produced a short modern vowel and a long one produced a long modern vowel. As for 'people', it's a borrowing from Old French pueple, it appeared in Middle English era, it wasn't used in Old English, and it never had any diphthong, neither short nor long.– Yellow SkyApr 29, 2021 at 20:53
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Oh, okay, þanks, I probably should have checked to see ðat people was a loan word, my bad.– Quintus Caesius - RMApr 29, 2021 at 23:54
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