|
Y Dropping
This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of English which concern consonants. Consonant clusters H-cluster reductions * Reduction of /hw/ – to in a few words (such as ''who''), but usually to , 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 in Middle English. * Reduction of /hj/ to in a few American and Irish dialects (so that ''hew'' is pronounced like ''yew''). Y-cluster reductions * Yod-dropping – the elision of in certain clusters, depending on dialect (for example, RP has in ''new'', while General American and Cockney do not). * Yod-coalescence, whereby the clusters , , and become , , and respectively (for example, ''education'' is often pronounced as if it began "edge"). Other initial cluster reductions * Reduction of /wr/ to , in words like ''wrap'', around the 17th century (there was also a reduction of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonological History Of English
Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants ( stops, affricates, and fricatives). This article describes the development of the phonology of English over time, starting from its roots in proto-Germanic to diverse changes in different dialects of modern English. Abbreviations In the following description, abbreviations are used as follows: * C = any consonant * V = any vowel * # = end of word * * = reconstructed * ** = non-existent * > = changes into * >! = changes into, unexpectedly * late PGmc ' "you carried (sg)". * /n/">Word-final became . ** Word-final was then lost after unstressed syllables with nasaliz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glottal Stop
The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . As a result of the obstruction of the airflow in the glottis, the glottal vibration either stops or becomes irregular with a low rate and sudden drop in intensity. Features Features of the glottal stop: * It has no phonation at all, as there is no airflow through the glottis. It is voiceless, however, in the sense that it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. Writing In the traditional romanization of many languages, such as Arabic, the glottal stop is transcribed with the Modifier letter apostrophe, apostrophe ʼ, or the symbol ʾ, , which is the source of the IPA character . In many Polynesian languages that use the Latin alphabet, however, the glottal stop is written wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lenis Consonant
In linguistics, ''fortis'' ( ; Latin for 'strong') and ''lenis'' (, ; Latin for 'weak'), sometimes identified with 'tense' and 'lax', are pronunciations of consonants with relatively greater and lesser energy, respectively. English has fortis consonants, such as the ''p'' in ''pat'', with a corresponding lenis consonant, such as the ''b'' in ''bat''. Fortis and lenis consonants may be distinguished by tenseness or other characteristics, such as voicing, aspiration, glottalization, velarization, length, and length of nearby vowels. ''Fortis'' and ''lenis'' were coined for languages where the contrast between sounds such as 'p' and 'b' does not involve voicing (vibration of the vocal cords). History Originally, the terms were used to refer to an impressionistic sense of strength differences, though more sophisticated instruments eventually gave the opportunity to search for the acoustic and articulatory signs. For example, tested whether articulatory strength could be dete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voiced Consonant
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts: *Voicing can refer to the ''articulatory process'' in which the vocal folds vibrate, its primary use in phonetics to describe phones, which are particular speech sounds. *It can also refer to a classification of speech sounds that tend to be associated with vocal cord vibration but may not actually be voiced at the articulatory level. That is the term's primary use in phonology: to describe phonemes; while in phonetics its primary use is to describe phones. For example, voicing accounts for the difference between the pair of sounds associated with the English letters ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩. The two sounds are transcribed as and to distinguish them from the English letters, which have several possible pronuncia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand English
New Zealand English (NZE) is the variant of the English language spoken and written by most English-speaking New Zealanders. Its language code in ISO and Internet standards is en-NZ. It is the first language of the majority of the population. The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet esof the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and become distinctive only in the last 150 years". The variety of English that had the biggest influence on the development of New Zealand English was Australian English, itself derived from Southeastern England English, with considerable influence from Scottish and Hiberno-English, and with lesser influences the British prestige accent Received Pronunciation (RP) and American English. An important source of vocabulary is the Māori language of the indigenous people of New Zealand, whose contribution distinguishes New Zealand Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language. While Australia has no official language, English is the first language of Languages of Australia, the majority of the population, and has been entrenched as the ''de facto'' national language since the onset of History of Australia (1788–1850), British settlement, being the only language spoken in the home for 72% of Australians in 2021. It is also the main language used in compulsory education, as well as federal, state and territorial legislatures and courts. Australian English began to diverge from British English, British and Hiberno-English after the First Fleet established the Colony of New South Wales in 1788. Australian English arose from a Koiné language, dialectal melting pot created by the intermingling of early settlers who were from a variety of d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North American English
North American English (NAmE) encompasses the English language as spoken in both the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of American English, U.S. English and Canadian English, linguists often group the two together. Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, although certain words always take British spellings (e.g., ''cheque'') and others American spellings (e.g., ''tire'' rather than ''tyre''). Dialects of English spoken by United Empire Loyalists who fled the American Revolution (1775–1783) have had a large influence on Canadian English from its early roots. Some terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in Canada and the United States (for example, the terms ''diaper'' and ''gasoline'' are widely used instead of ''nappy'' and ''petrol''). Although many English speakers from outside North America regard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alveolar Flap
The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ... that represents a dental, alveolar, or postalveolar tap or flap is . The terms ''tap'' and ''flap'' are often used interchangeably. Peter Ladefoged proposed the distinction that a tap strikes its point of contact directly, as a very brief stop, and a flap strikes the point of contact tangentially: "Flaps are most typically made by retracting the tongue tip behind the alveolar ridge and moving it forward so that it strikes the ridge in passing." That distinction between the alveolar tap and flap can be written in the IPA with tap and flap , the 'retroflex' symbol being used for the one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flapping
Flapping or tapping, also known as alveolar flapping, intervocalic flapping, or ''t''-voicing, is a phonological process involving a voiced alveolar tap or flap; it is found in many varieties of English, especially North American, Cardiff, Ulster, Australian and New Zealand English, where the voiceless alveolar stop consonant phoneme is pronounced as a voiced alveolar flap , a sound produced by briefly tapping the alveolar ridge with the tongue, when placed between vowels. In London English, the flapped is perceived as a casual pronunciation intermediate between the affricate , with higher class associations, and the glottal stop , with lower class associations. In these named varieties, outside of Britain, , the voiced counterpart of , is also frequently pronounced as a flap in such positions, making pairs of words like ''latter'' and ''ladder'' sound similar or identical. In similar positions, the combination may be pronounced as a nasalized flap , making ''winter'' soun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preaspiration
In phonetics, preaspiration (sometimes spelled pre-aspiration) is a period of voicelessness or aspiration preceding the closure of a voiceless obstruent, basically equivalent to an -like sound preceding the obstruent. In other words, when an obstruent is preaspirated, the glottis is opened for some time before the obstruent closure. To mark preaspiration using the International Phonetic Alphabet, the diacritic for regular aspiration, , can be placed before the preaspirated consonant. However, prefer to use a simple cluster notation, e.g. instead of . Typology Preaspiration is comparatively uncommon across languages of the world, and is claimed by some to not be phonemically contrastive in any language. note that, at least in the case of Icelandic, preaspirated stops have a longer duration of aspiration than normally aspirated (post-aspirated) stops, comparable to clusters of +consonant in languages with such clusters. As a result, they view preaspiration as purely a distribut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English or Irish English (IrE), also formerly sometimes called Anglo-Irish, is the set of dialects of English native to the island of Ireland. In both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, English is the first language in everyday use and, alongside the Irish language, one of two official languages (with Ulster Scots, in Northern Ireland, being yet another local language). The writing standards of Irish English, such as its spelling, align with British English. But the diverse accents and some of the grammatical structures and vocabulary of Irish English are unique, including certain notably conservative phonological features and vocabulary: those that are no longer common in the dialects of England or North America. It shows significant influences from the Irish language and, in the north, the Scots language. Phonologists today often divide Irish English into four or five overarching dialects or accents: Ulster or Northern Irish accents, Western and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geordie
Geordie ( ), sometimes known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English, is an English dialect and accent spoken in the Tyneside area of North East England. It developed as a variety of the old Northumbrian dialect and became especially connected with the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. ''Geordie'' is also a nickname for a resident of this same region, though there are different definitions of what constitutes a Geordie, and not everyone from the North East identifies as such. Furthermore, a Geordie can mean a supporter of the football club Newcastle United. Geordie Schooner glass was traditionally used to serve Newcastle Brown Ale. The Geordie dialect and identity are primarily associated with a working-class background. It is often considered unintelligible to many other native English speakers. A 2008 newspaper survey found the Geordie accent to be perceived as the "most attractive in England" among the British public. History Like all English dialects, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
