The high diphthongs and were not present in West Saxon, having merged into and . Early West Saxon, however, had an additional pair of long and short diphthongs written (distinguished as and in modern editions), which developed from i-mutation or umlaut of or , or . Scholars do not agree on how they were pronounced; they may have been or . They were apparently monophothongized by Alfred the Great's time, to a vowel whose pronunciation is still uncertain, but is known as "unstable "i"". This later went on to merge with , according to spellings such as , for earlier and ('to believe'). (According to another interpretation, however, the "unstable i" may simply have been , and the later can be explained by the fact that Late West Saxon was not a direct descendant of Early West Saxon. See Old English dialects.) This produced additional instances of alongside those that developed from i-mutation and from sporadic rounding of in certain circumstances (e.g. 'much' from earlier , with rounding perhaps triggered by the rounded ). All instances of were normally unrounded next to , and , hence from earlier 'to give'.