Phonological history of English consonants

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This article describes those aspects of the

H-cluster reductions

• Reduction of /hw/
  – to /h/ in a few words (such as who), but usually to /w/, for the great majority of English speakers (so that whine comes to be pronounced the same as wine).
• Reduction of /hl/, /hr/ and /hn/, with the loss of the initial /h/ in Middle English.
• Reduction of /hj/ to /j/ in a few American and Irish dialects (so that hew is pronounced like yew).

Y-cluster reductions

• General American and Cockney
  do not).
• Yod-coalescence
  , whereby the clusters /dj/, /tj/, /sj/ and /zj/ become [dʒ], [tʃ], [ʃ] and [ʒ] respectively (for example, education is often pronounced as if it began "edge").

• Reduction of /wr/ to /r/, in words like wrap, around the 17th century (there was also a reduction of /wl/ to /l/ in Middle English).
• Reduction of /kn/ and /ɡn/ to /n/, in words like knot and gnome, around the 17th century.
• S-cluster reduction, in some types of Caribbean English
  , where for example spit is pronounced pit.

• NG-coalescence
  – reduction of the final cluster [ŋɡ] to [ŋ], in words like hang, which has occurred in all but a few English dialects.
• G-dropping – reduction of the final cluster [ŋɡ] to [n] in weak syllables, principally in the verb ending -ing
  , which has occurred in many English dialects, although not in the modern standard varieties.
• Reduction of /mb/ and /mn/ to /m/, in later Middle English, affecting words like lamb and column.
• African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Caribbean English
  , where for example desk and hand may be pronounced "dess" and "han".

• soft ⟨c⟩
  .
• Medial cluster reduction – elision of certain stops in medial clusters, such as the /t/ in postman.
• Insertion (epenthesis) of stops after nasals in certain clusters, for example making prince sound like prints, and dreamt rhyme with attempt.
• Assimilation of certain consonants in clusters, especially nasals.
• Glottalization and pre-glottalization (insertion of a glottal stop in place of or before a /t/ or other stop) in certain environments, depending on dialect.
• Certain other changes occurring in AAVE, including S-cluster metathesis (as with the use of "aks" for ask – an alternation which also has a long history in general forms of English), the merger of /str/ and /skr/, and yod-rhotacization (where beautiful is pronounced "brootiful").

Stops

Aspiration

The

In certain accents, such as Geordie (among younger women)^[2] and in some speakers of Dublin English,^[3] /p/, /t/ and /k/ can be preaspirated when they come at the end of a word or utterance, becoming [ʰp], [ʰt], [ʰk].

Flapping

If all final voiceless stops are glottalized, as may occur in some London speech, then sets of words such as lick, lit and lip may become homophones, pronounced [lɪʔ].[5]

Fricatives and affricates

H-dropping and H-insertion

The voiceless velar and palatal fricative sounds [x] and [ç], considered to be allophones of /h/ and reflected by the ⟨gh⟩ in the spelling of words such as night, taught and weight, were lost in later Middle English or in Early Modern English. Their loss was accompanied by certain changes in the previous vowels. In some cases [x] became /f/, as in laugh.

A /x/ is still heard in words of the above type in certain Scots and northern English traditional dialect speech. A /x/ is more commonly heard, especially in the Celtic countries but also for many speakers elsewhere, in the word loch and in certain proper names such as Buchan.

For details of the above phenomena, see H-loss (Middle English). See also the vocalization of the voiced velar fricative [ɣ].

Voiced/voiceless splits

The Old English fricatives /f, θ, s/ had voiceless and voiced allophones, the voiced forms occurring in certain environments, such as between vowels. In Early Middle English, partly by borrowings from French, they split into separate phonemes: /f, v, θ, ð, s, z/. See Middle English phonology – Voiced fricatives.

Also in the Middle English period, the voiced affricate /dʒ/ took on phonemic status. (In Old English, it is considered to have been an allophone of /j/). It occurred in Middle English not only in words like brigge ("bridge") in which it had been present in Old English but also in French loanwords like juge ("judge") and general.

After the Middle English period, a fourth voiced fricative, /ʒ/, developed as a phoneme (alongside the voiceless /ʃ/). It arose from

As noted above, the Old English phoneme /θ/ split into two phonemes in early Middle English: a voiceless dental fricative /θ/ and a voiced dental fricative /ð/. Both continued to be spelt ⟨th⟩.

Certain English accents feature variant pronunciations of these sounds. These include

Initial fricative voicing is a process that occurs in some traditional accents of the English West Country, where the fricatives /f/, /θ/, /s/ and /ʃ/ are voiced to [v], [ð], [z] and [ʒ] when they occur at the beginning of a word. (Words beginning /θr/, like three, develop /dr/ instead.) In these accents, sing and farm are pronounced [zɪŋ] and [vɑːɻm]. The phenomenon is well known as a stereotypical feature, but is now rare in actual speech.^[7] Some such pronunciations have spread from these dialects to become standard usage: the words vane, vat and vixen all had initial /f/ in Old English (fana, fæt, fyxen).^[8]

A similar phenomenon occurred in both German and Dutch.

Other changes

• In
  retracted pronunciation similar to /ʃ/.^[9] Confusion between /ʃ/ and /s/ (or /tʃ/) occurs in some African varieties of English, so ship may be pronounced like sip (or chip).^[10] In Zulu English, it is reported that /tʃ/ is sometimes replaced by /ʃ/.^[11]
• The
  Mexican American English merge /v/ with /b/, making ban and van homophones (pronounced as [ban], or as [βan] with a bilabial fricative
  ). The distinction of /v/ from /b/ is one of the last phonological distinctions commonly learnt by English-speaking children generally, and pairs like dribble/drivel may be pronounced similarly even by adults.
• In Indian English, /v/ is often pronounced like /w/, sounded as [w] or as a labiodental approximant [ʋ].^[13] Some Indian speakers make various changes in the pronunciation of other fricatives: /z/ may become [dʒ] or [dz]; /ʃ/ may become [s] or [sj]; /ʒ/ may become [ʃ], [z] or [dʒ], /dʒ/ may become [z] or [dz]; /tʃ/ may become [ts]; /f/ may become a bilabial [ɸ] or an aspirated stop [pʰ].^[14] For /θ/ and /ð/, see th-stopping.
• For some speakers of
  Mexican American English, initial /dʒ/ and /j/ may be used in place of each other, so jet may be pronounced as yet or vice versa.^[15]
• In Indian South African English, the typical realization of the labiodental fricatives /f, v/ are the approximants [ʋ̥, ʋ].^[16]

Approximants

Insertion and deletion of /j/ and /w/

In parts of the west and southwest of England, initial /w/ may be dropped in words like wool and woman; occasionally, though, a /w/ may be inserted before certain vowels, as in "wold" for old and "bwoiling" for boiling. Similarly, initial /j/ may be lost in words like yeast and yes (this has also been reported in parts of eastern England), and may be added in words like earth (making "yearth").^[17]

For the much more widespread deletion of /j/ in consonant clusters, see

Old and Middle English /r/ was historically pronounced as an

A uvular realization of /r/, the "Northumbrian burr", is used by some speakers in the far north of England.

A relatively recent innovation in the southeast of England, possibly originating from

In Early Modern English, in many words in which a dark /l/ followed the vowel /a/ or /o/, the /l/ either disappeared or underwent vocalization, usually with some kind of diphthongization or compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. This affected:

• Words with final /al/ and /ol/, which underwent partial L-vocalization, with the insertion of [ʊ] between the vowel and the /l/. The resulting diphthongs developed respectively into modern /ɔː/ in words like all, ball, call, and into the GOAT vowel in words like poll, scroll and control. Some words of more recent origin did not undergo these changes, such as pal, doll and alcohol; the word shall is also unaffected.
• Words with /al/ and /ol/ followed by a coronal consonant, which followed the same pattern as those above, although here in modern RP the /ɔː/ of the first set is mostly replaced by a short /ɒ/, as in words like salt, halt, falter, bald, false, Walsh. Words in the second set, having the GOAT vowel, include old, cold and bolt (though some RP speakers also have /ɒ/ in words like bolt). The word solder has a variety of pronunciations; in North America the /l/ is often dropped.
• Words with /alk/ and /olk/, which again followed the same pattern, but also dropped the /l/, so that words like chalk, talk and walk now have /ɔːk/, while folk and yolk rhyme with smoke.
• Words with /alf/ or /alv/ (calf, half, halve), which simply lost the /l/ (the vowel of these is now /æ/ in General American and /ɑː/ in RP, by BATH-broadening). The word salve is often pronounced with the /l/; the name
  Ralph
  may be /rælf/, /rɑːlf/, /rɑːf/ or /reɪf/. Words like solve were not affected, although golf dropped the /l/ in some British accents.
• Words with /alm/ and /olm/, which lost the /l/ and lengthened the vowel (the lengthened [oː] later becoming diphthongized in the
  toe–tow merger). Words like alms, balm, calm, Chalmers, qualm, palm and psalm now generally have /ɑː/ in the standard accents, while holm and Holmes are homophones of home(s). Some accents (including many of American English) have reintroduced the /l/ in these words as a spelling pronunciation
  . The word salmon generally retains a short vowel despite the loss of /l/.
• A few words with /alb/ or /olb/, such as Alban and Albany, which have developed to /ɔːl/ (though Albania usually has /æl/), and Holborn, which has the GOAT vowel and no /l/. Words like scalp and Alps are unaffected.

As noted under some of the points above, /l/ may be reintroduced in some of the words from which it has been lost, as a spelling pronunciation. This happens sometimes in

In some accents around Bristol, "intrusive L" is found, where an /l/ is inserted at the end of words ending in schwa, like comma and idea. This is now somewhat stigmatized, but far from rare. The name Bristol itself was formerly Bristow.^[23]

In some modern English accents, significant pre-L breaking occurs when /l/ follows certain vowels (/iː/, /uː/, and diphthongs ending [ɪ] or [ʊ]). Here the vowel develops a centering offglide (an additional

Most varieties of English do not have full devoicing of final voiced obstruents, but voiced obstruents are partially devoiced in final position in English, especially when they are phrase-final or when they are followed by a voiceless consonant (for example, bad cat [bæd̥ kʰæt]). The most salient distinction between bad and bat is not the voicing of the final consonant but the duration of the vowel and the possible glottalization of final [t]: bad is pronounced [bæːd̥] while bat is [bæ(ʔ)t].

Final consonant deletion

Final consonant deletion is the nonstandard deletion of single consonants in syllable-final position occurring for some

See also

• Phonological history of the English language
• Phonological history of English vowels
• Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
• L-vocalization
• Phonological history of wh

References