When a diphthong becomes a single "pure" vowel, the phenomenon is called "smoothing."
1. The Old English diphthongs /æ'/, /æ:'/ and /e'/, /e:'/ smoothed in Middle English to produce the following results.
| OE /æ'/ |
>
|
ME /a/ |
| OE /æ:'/ |
>
|
ME /e:/ |
| OE /e'/ |
>
|
ME /e/ |
| OE /e:'/ |
>
|
ME /e/ |
2. In general, the Middle English diphthongs smoothed in Early Modern English, producing the following results.
i. ME /æi/ > EME /e/.
ii. ME /au/ > EME /ô/ except before a labial consonant, in which case ME /au/ > EME /a/ or /æ/.
iii. ME /eu/ fell together with ME /iu/ and in the 16th century > EME /ju/.
iv. ME /Ui/ and /ôi/ fell together as EME /ôi/. In some dialects, however, the two ME diphthongs remained distinct into the PDE period: in these dialects, ME /Ui/ > EME /ôi/, and ME /ôi/ > EME /'i/.
v. ME /ôu/ > EME /o/.