The Modern I Sound

Before this vowl was pronounced in the highest position in the front of the mouth, it now started to be pronounced in two different places. A couple of centuries later, in the 16 hundred and 17 hundreds, it shifted again. The initial sound dropped from ah in the center of the mouth down to a in the lower part of the mouth. So instead of saying a, people began to say i or i in normal speech. And that's how we got the modern i sound.