pronounced as /notice/This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of English which concern consonants.
See main article: Phonological history of English consonant clusters.
The voiceless stops pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t//, pronounced as //k// are typically aspirated when they begin a stressed syllable, becoming pronounced as /[pʰ], [tʰ], [kʰ]/, as described under English phonology (obstruents). There is some regional variation in the degree of aspiration, and in some Scottish and northern English accents aspiration does not occur at all.[1]
In certain accents, such as Geordie (among younger women) and in some speakers of Dublin English,[2] pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //k// can be preaspirated when they come at the end of a word or utterance, becoming pronounced as /[ʰp], [ʰt], [ʰk]/.
See main article: Flapping. Flapping, or tapping, is a process whereby pronounced as //t// or pronounced as //d// is pronounced as the alveolar flap pronounced as /[ɾ]/ in certain positions, especially between vowels (but also sometimes after other sonorants). It may be perceived as, for example, the pronunciation of butter as "budder". It occurs especially in North American English (to varying extents) and in Australian and New Zealand English.
Apart from the T-voicing that results from flapping (described above), some dialects feature other instances of voicing or lenition of the stops pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //k//. In Geordie, these stops may be fully voiced (pronounced as /[b]/, pronounced as /[d]/, pronounced as /[ɡ]/) in intervocalic position. In Devon, stops and other obstruents may be voiced (or at least lenited) between vowels and when final after a weak vowel, so for example the pronounced as //k// and pronounced as //t// in jacket may approach the realizations pronounced as /[ɡ]/ and pronounced as /[d]/, making the word sound similar or identical to jagged.[3]
Stops, chiefly the voiceless stops, and especially pronounced as //t//, are frequently glottalized or pre-glottalized in certain positions; that is, a stop may be replaced with the glottal stop pronounced as /[ʔ]/, or else a glottal stop may be inserted before it. These phenomena are strongly dependent on the phonetic environment and on dialect. For details, see T-glottalization, as well as English phonology (obstruents) and glottalization in consonant clusters.
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 pronounced as /[lɪʔ]/.[4]
See main article: H-dropping. H-dropping is the omission of initial pronounced as //h// in words like house, heat and hangover. It is common in many dialects, especially in England, Wales, Australia and Jamaica, but is generally stigmatized, and is not a feature of the standard accents. The pronounced as //h// is nonetheless frequently dropped in all forms of English in the weak forms of function words like he, him, her, his, had and have. The opposite of H-dropping, called H-insertion or H-adding, may arise as a hypercorrection by typically H-dropping speakers, or as a spelling pronunciation.
The voiceless velar and palatal fricative sounds pronounced as /[x]/ and pronounced as /[ç]/, considered to be allophones of pronounced as //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 pronounced as /[x]/ became pronounced as //f//, as in laugh.
A pronounced as //x// is still heard in words of the above type in certain Scots and northern English traditional dialect speech. A pronounced as //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.
Alexander John Ellis reported use of [x] in England on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border and close to the Scottish border in the late nineteenth century.[5]
For details of the above phenomena, see H-loss (Middle English). See also the vocalization of the voiced velar fricative pronounced as /[ɣ]/.
The Old English fricatives pronounced as //f, θ, s// had voiceless and voiced allophones, the voiced forms occurring in certain environments, such as between vowels, and in words originating from the Kentish dialect (like vane, vinew, vixen, and zink), word-initially. In Early Middle English, partly by borrowings from French, they split into separate phonemes: pronounced as //f, v, θ, ð, s, z//. See Middle English phonology – Voiced fricatives.
Also in the Middle English period, the voiced affricate pronounced as //dʒ// took on phonemic status. (In Old English, it is considered to have been an allophone of pronounced as //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, pronounced as //ʒ//, developed as a phoneme (alongside the voiceless pronounced as //ʃ//). It arose from yod-coalescence (pronounced as //zj/→/ʒ//) in words like measure, and from late French loanwords like rouge and beige.[6]
See main article: Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩. As noted above, the Old English phoneme pronounced as //θ// split into two phonemes in early Middle English: a voiceless dental fricative pronounced as //θ// and a voiced dental fricative pronounced as //ð//. Both continued to be spelt (th).
Certain English accents feature variant pronunciations of these sounds. These include fronting, where they merge with pronounced as //f// and pronounced as //v// (found in Cockney and some other dialects); stopping, where they approach pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //d// (as in some Irish speech); alveolarisation, where they become pronounced as //s// and pronounced as //z// (in some African varieties); and debuccalisation, where pronounced as //θ// becomes pronounced as /[h]/ before a vowel (found in some Scottish English).
Initial fricative voicing is a process that occurs in some traditional accents of the English West Country, where the fricatives pronounced as //f//, pronounced as //θ//, pronounced as //s// and pronounced as //ʃ// are voiced to pronounced as /[v]/, pronounced as /[ð]/, pronounced as /[z]/ and pronounced as /[ʒ]/ when they occur at the beginning of a word. (Words beginning pronounced as //θr//, like three, develop pronounced as //dr// instead.) In these accents, sing and farm are pronounced pronounced as /[zɪŋ]/ and pronounced as /[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 pronounced as //f// in Old English (English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fana, fæt, fyxen).
A similar phenomenon occurred in both German and Dutch.
| fail | vale | pronounced as /ˈvɛɪl/ | |
| fail | veil | pronounced as /ˈvɛɪl/ | |
| fairy | vary | pronounced as /ˈvɛəri/ | |
| fan | van | pronounced as /ˈvæn/ | |
| fast | vast | pronounced as /ˈvæst/ | |
| fat | vat | pronounced as /ˈvæt/ | |
| fault | vault | pronounced as /ˈvɔːlt/ | |
| fear | veer | pronounced as /ˈvɪər/ | |
| fecks | vex | pronounced as /ˈvɛks/ | |
| fee | vee | pronounced as /ˈviː/ | |
| feel | veal | pronounced as /ˈviːl/ | |
| feeler | velar | pronounced as /ˈviːlər/ | |
| fend | vend | pronounced as /ˈvɛnd/ | |
| ferry | very | pronounced as /ˈvɛri/ | |
| fetch | vetch | pronounced as /ˈvɛtʃ/ | |
| fetter | vetter | pronounced as /ˈvɛtər/ | |
| fest | vest | pronounced as /ˈvɛst/ | |
| few | view | pronounced as /ˈvjuː/ | |
| fie | vie | pronounced as /ˈvaɪ/ | |
| figure | vigour | pronounced as /ˈvɪɡər/ | |
| file | vial | pronounced as /ˈvaɪl/ | With vile-vial merger. |
| file | vile | pronounced as /ˈvaɪl/ | |
| fill | vill | pronounced as /ˈvɪl/ | |
| final | vinyl | pronounced as /ˈvaɪnəl/ | |
| fine | vine | pronounced as /ˈvaɪn/ | |
| fizz | viz. | pronounced as /ˈvɪz/ | |
| focal | vocal | pronounced as /ˈvoʊkəl/ | |
| foist | voiced | pronounced as /ˈvɔɪst/ | |
| folly | volley | pronounced as /ˈvɒli/ | |
| foul | vowel | pronounced as /ˈvaʊl/ | With vile-vial merger. |
| fowl | vowel | pronounced as /ˈvaʊl/ | With vile-vial merger. |
| fox | vox | pronounced as /ˈvɑks/ | |
| sag | zag | pronounced as /ˈzæɡ/ | |
| said | zed | pronounced as /ˈzɛd/ | |
| sane | Zane | pronounced as /ˈzeɪn/ | |
| sap | zap | pronounced as /ˈzæp/ | |
| sax | zax | pronounced as /ˈzæks/ | |
| scene | zine | pronounced as /ˈziːn/ | |
| sea | zee | pronounced as /ˈziː/ | |
| seal | zeal | pronounced as /ˈziːl/ | |
| see | zee | pronounced as /ˈziː/ | |
| seen | zine | pronounced as /ˈziːn/ | |
| seine | Zane | pronounced as /ˈzeɪn/ | |
| seize | zees | pronounced as /ˈziːz/ | |
| sewn | zone | pronounced as /ˈzoʊn/ | |
| sing | zing | pronounced as /ˈzɪŋ/ | |
| sink | zinc | pronounced as /ˈzɪŋk/ | |
| zoo | pronounced as /ˈzuː/ | ||
| sip | zip | pronounced as /ˈzɪp/ | |
| sit | zit | pronounced as /ˈzɪt/ | |
| sone | zone | pronounced as /ˈzoʊn/ | |
| sown | zone | pronounced as /ˈzoʊn/ | |
| thigh | thy | pronounced as /ˈðaɪ/ | |
| thou (thousand(th)) | thou (you) | pronounced as /ˈðaʊ/ | |
| thrall | drawl | pronounced as /ˈdrɔːl/ | |
| thread | dread | pronounced as /ˈdrɛd/ | |
| threw | drew | pronounced as /ˈdruː/ | |
| throne | drone | pronounced as /ˈdroʊn/ | |
| through | drew | pronounced as /ˈdruː/ | |
| thrown | drone | pronounced as /ˈdroʊn/ | |
| thrift | drift | pronounced as /ˈdrɪft/ | |
| thrive | drive | pronounced as /ˈdraɪv/ | |
| thriven | driven | pronounced as /ˈdrɪvən/ | |
| throve | drove | pronounced as /ˈdroʊv/ |
For the much more widespread deletion of pronounced as //j// in consonant clusters, see yod-dropping (and compare also yod-coalescence and yod-rhotacization). For the historical loss of pronounced as //w// in such words as who and write, see pronunciation of wh and reduction of /wr/.
See main article: Pronunciation of English /r/. Old and Middle English pronounced as //r// was historically pronounced as an alveolar trill, pronounced as /[r]/. At some time between later Middle English and Early Modern English, it changed to an alveolar approximant, pronounced as /[ɹ]/, in the standard accents. Some Scottish speakers, however, retain the original trilled ("rolled") pronounced as //r//.[16]
Another possible realization of pronounced as //r// is the alveolar tap, pronounced as /[ɾ]/. This is common (alongside pronounced as /[ɹ]/) in Scotland, and is also found in certain other accents, chiefly in positions between vowels or between a consonant and a vowel – this occurs, for example, in some Liverpool English and in some upper-class RP[17] (this should not be confused with the tap pronunciation of /t/ and /d/, found especially in North America).
In most General American, pronounced as //r// is pronounced as /[ɹ]/ before a vowel, but when not followed by a vowel is generally realized as an r-colored vowel, pronounced as /[ɚ]/, or as r-coloring on the preceding vowel. In many accents of English, including RP, pronounced as //r// is lost altogether when not followed by a vowel – for this, see rhoticity in English (and for related phenomena, linking and intrusive R). For vowel changes before pronounced as //r//, see English-language vowel changes before historic /r/.
A uvular realization of pronounced as //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 Cockney, is the use of a labiodental approximant, pronounced as /[ʋ]/, for pronounced as //r//. To some listeners this can sound like a pronounced as //w//.
See also: English-language vowel changes before historic /l/. Velarization of pronounced as //l// in positions where there is no vowel following, producing a "dark L", is a phenomenon that goes back to Old English times.[18] Today there is much variation between dialects as regards the degree and distribution of this velarization; see English phonology (sonorants).
In Early Modern English, in many words in which a dark pronounced as //l// followed the vowel pronounced as //a// or pronounced as //o//, the pronounced as //l// either disappeared or underwent vocalization, usually with some kind of diphthongization or compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. This affected:
As noted under some of the points above, pronounced as //l// may be reintroduced in some of the words from which it has been lost, as a spelling pronunciation. This happens sometimes in Irish English, where for example Dundalk may be pronounced pronounced as //dʌndɔːlk// (in standard English the (l) is silent).
The pronounced as //l// has also been lost in the words would and should. The word could was never pronounced with pronounced as //l//; its spelling results from analogy with the former words.
Modern L-vocalization (the replacement of "dark" pronounced as //l// with a non-syllabic vowel sound, usually similar to pronounced as /[ʊ]/ or pronounced as /[o]/) is a feature of certain accents, particularly in London English and in near-RP speech that has been influenced by it ("Estuary English"), in some New York and Philadelphia speech, in the American South and African American Vernacular English, and in New Zealand English.[19] Also in AAVE and some southern American accents, L-dropping may occur when the pronounced as //l// sound comes after a vowel and before a labial consonant in the same syllable, causing pronunciations like pronounced as //hɛp// for help and pronounced as //sɛf// for self.[20]
In some accents around Bristol, "intrusive L" is found, where an pronounced as //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.[21]
In some modern English accents, significant pre-L breaking occurs when pronounced as //l// follows certain vowels (pronounced as //iː//, pronounced as //uː//, and diphthongs ending pronounced as /[ɪ]/ or pronounced as /[ʊ]/). Here the vowel develops a centering offglide (an additional schwa) before the pronounced as //l//. This may cause reel to be pronounced like real, and tile, boil and fowl to rhyme with dial, royal and vowel. Wells considers this breaking to be a feature of Midwestern and New York English.[22] Similar pre-L schwa-insertion may also occur after pronounced as //r// (in rhotic accents), leading to pronunciations like pronounced as //ˈwɜrəld// for world.
Final obstruent devoicing is the full devoicing of final obstruents that occurs for some AAVE speakers in Detroit where obstruents are devoiced at the end of a word. The preceding length of the vowel is maintained when the final obstruents are devoiced in AAVE: pronounced as /[bɪːk]/ and pronounced as /[bæːt]/ for "big" and "bad".
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 pronounced as /[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 pronounced as /[t]/: bad is pronounced pronounced as /[bæːd̥]/ while bat is pronounced as /[bæ(ʔ)t]/.
Final consonant deletion is the nonstandard deletion of single consonants in syllable-final position occurring for some AAVE speakers resulting in pronunciations like:
When final nasal consonants are deleted, the nasality is maintained on the preceding vowel. When voiced stops are deleted, the length of the preceding vowel is maintained. Consonants remaining from reduced final clusters may be eligible for deletion. The deletion occurs especially if the final consonant is a nasal or a stop. Final-consonant deletion is much less frequent than the more common final-cluster reduction.
Consonants can also be deleted at the end of a morpheme boundary, leading to pronunciations like pronounced as /[kɪːz]/ for kids.