The Great Vowel Shift. English writing was sensible in the early 14th century around the time of Chaucer, but then shit got out of whack speaking-wise and the writing system was never adjusted to reconcile the difference. So you can blame the Black Death I guess.
Eq0@literature.cafe 15 hours ago
It’s not only vowels, but consonants disappearing or just having a different flavor of sounds in each word. Like word, sword, swan…