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English shifted higher (that is, the tongue was raised somewhat
more) with greater closing of the mouth. Those vowels that were

already raised as far as they could be became diphthongs.
The relative position from the back of the mouth to the

front (back, central, and front). Thus vowels can be described in
such forms as “high front” (the “ee” found in “beet”) or “low

central” (the “a” sound in “bat”).

Using these terms, we see that in the Great Vowel Shift, the
high front vowel becomes a diphthong: “fif” (which was

pronounced “feef”) becomes “five” (with the “iy” diphthong

pronunciation in Modern English). This left an open spot in the
high front vowel space, into which the vowel that had previously

been a mid front vowel moved (i.e., the mid front vowel became
a high front vowel after the high front vowel became a

diphthong): mede (which was pronounced “maid – eh”) became
“meed.” Now there was an opening for a midfront vowel, and

into that slot moved the previous low front vowel: “breke”

(which was pronounced “bray – keh”) became “break.” Here
things get a little more complicated, as another vowel, this time

from the back of the mouth, also jumped into this spot: “name”
(which was pronounced “nahm – he”) becomes “name.” You

will note that “break” and “name” have the same pronunciation
but different spellings.

A similar shuffle happened in the back of the mouth. The

high back vowel in Middle English “mus” (pronounced
“moose,” but meaning “mouse”) became a diphthong, giving us

Modern English “mouse.” Into that open high back vowel slot

moved the sound that had been a mid back vowel: “roote”
(pronounced “row – teh”) became “root.” That in turn left an

opening for a mid back vowel into which the previous low back
vowel moved: “goote” (which in English was pronounced

something like “gaw – teh”) becomes “goat.”

fif (pronounced “feef”) five

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