/ɛj/ as in nail, day, whey (the product of the vein–vain merger).The English of southeastern England around 1400 had seven diphthongs, of which three ended in /j/: Later (around the 1800s) this diphthong would merge in most dialects with the monophthong of words like pane in the pane–pain merger. The merged vowel was a diphthong, something like /ɛj/ or /æj/. After the merger, vein and vain were homophones, and way and day rhymed. Similarly, vein and vain (borrowings from French) were pronounced differently as /vejn/ and /vajn/. In early Middle English, before the merger, way and day, which came from Old English weġ and dæġ had /ej/ and /aj/ respectively. The merger is reflected in all dialects of present-day English. These came to be merged, perhaps by the fourteenth century. ![]() The vowel /ɛj/ was typically represented orthographically with "ei" or "ey", and the vowel /aj/ was typically represented orthographically with "ai" or ay". For a table showing the development of the Middle English diphthongs, see Middle English phonology (diphthong equivalents).Įarly Middle English had two separate diphthongs /ɛj/ and /aj/. The diphthongs that developed by these processes also came to be used in many loanwords, particularly those from Old French.
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