A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1.c5.8

v1.c5.8

¹ In Old English the distinction was clearly marked. Our fathers from the fifth to the twelfth century, and even later, said *wac* = weak, and *weoc* = week. In many cases, however, our combination *ea*, pronounced as *i* in *machine*, is a corruption of Old English *eo*, as *georn* = yearn, *beom* = beam, *beotung* = beating, *eordhe* = earth, *beost* = beast, *eorl* = earl, *heorte* = heart, etc. To this day our Wessex peasantry in Hampshire and Dorsetshire pronounce *ea* as two syllables, saying *neät*, *beäst*, *weäk*, and the like. See Grimm, *Deutsche Grammatik*, vol. i., p. 239, compared with p. 541 (1st ed.).