Most dialects of modern
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
have two
close
Close may refer to:
Music
* ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988
* ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017
* ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969
* "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014
* "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016
* "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
back
The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column runs ...
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s: the
near-close near-back rounded vowel
The near-close near-back rounded vowel, or near-high near-back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some vocal languages. The IPA symbol that represents this sound is . It is informally called "horseshoe u". Prior to 1989, there was ...
found in words like ''foot'', and the
close back rounded vowel (realized as
central in many dialects) found in words like ''goose''. The vowel , which historically was back, is often
central as well. This article discusses the history of these vowels in various dialects of English, focusing in particular on
phonemic splits and mergers involving these sounds.
Historical development
The
Old English vowels
Old English phonology is necessarily somewhat speculative since Old English is preserved only as a written language. Nevertheless, there is a very large corpus of the language, and the orthography apparently indicates phonological alternation ...
included a pair of short and long close back vowels, and , both
written
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols.
Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...
(the longer vowel is often distinguished as in modern editions of Old English texts). There was also a pair of back vowels of mid-height, and , both of which were written (the longer vowel is often in modern editions).
The same four vowels existed in the
Middle English system. The short vowels were still written and , but long came to be spelt as , and as . Generally, the Middle English vowels descended from the corresponding Old English ones, but there were certain alternative developments: see
Phonological history of Old English#Changes leading up to Middle and Modern English.
The Middle English
open syllable lengthening caused short to be mostly lengthened to (an opener back vowel) in
open syllables
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
; this development can be seen in words like ''nose''. During the
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through ...
, Middle English long was raised to in words like ''moon''; Middle English long was diphthongised, becoming the present-day , as in ''mouse''; and Middle English of ''nose'' was raised and later diphthongized, leading to present-day .
At some point, short developed into a
lax
Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...
,
near-close near-back rounded vowel
The near-close near-back rounded vowel, or near-high near-back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some vocal languages. The IPA symbol that represents this sound is . It is informally called "horseshoe u". Prior to 1989, there was ...
, , as found in words like ''put''. (Similarly,
short has become .) According to Roger Lass, the laxing occurred in the 17th century, but other linguists have suggested that it may have taken place much earlier. The short remaining in words like ''lot'' has also been lowered and, in some accents, unrounded (see
open back vowels).
Shortening of to
In a handful of words, some of which are very common, the vowel was shortened to . In a few of those words, notably ''blood'' and ''flood'', the shortening happened early enough that the resulting underwent the "''foot–strut'' split" (see next section) and are now pronounced with . Other words that underwent shortening later consistently have , such as ''good'', ''book'', and ''wool''. Still other words, such as ''roof'', ''hoof'', and ''root'', are still in the process of the shift, with some speakers preferring and others preferring in such words, such as in
Texan English
Texan English is the array of American English dialects spoken in Texas, primarily falling under Southern U.S. English. As one nationwide study states, the typical Texan accent is a "Southern accent with a twist". The "twist" refers to inland S ...
. For some speakers in Northern England, words ending in ''-ook'', such as ''book'' and ''cook'' still have the long vowel.
– split
![Foot-strut split](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Foot-strut_split.svg)
The – split is the split of
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
short into two distinct phonemes: (as in ''foot'') and (as in ''strut''). The split occurs in most varieties of English, the most notable exceptions being most of
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...
and the
English Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...
and some varieties of
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English (from Latin '' Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland ...
. In
Welsh English
Welsh English ( cy, Saesneg Gymreig) comprises the dialects of English spoken by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh. In addition to the distinctive words and gr ...
, the split is also absent in parts of North Wales, under influence from
Merseyside
Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...
and
Cheshire accents,
and south
Pembrokeshire, where English replaced Welsh long before it occurred in the rest of Wales.
The origin of the split is the unrounding of in
Early Modern English
Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...
, resulting in the phoneme . Usually, unrounding to did not occur if was preceded by a
labial consonant
Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, bot ...
, such as , , , and was followed by , , or , leaving the modern . Because of the inconsistency of the split, ''put'' and ''putt'' became a
minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...
that were distinguished as and . The first clear description of the split dates from 1644.
In non-splitting accents, ''cut'' and ''put'' rhyme, ''putt'' and ''put'' are homophonous as , and ''pudding'' and ''budding'' rhyme. However ''luck'' and ''look'' may not necessarily be homophones since many accents in the area concerned have ''look'' as , with the vowel of ''goose''.
The absence of the split is a less common feature of educated Northern English speech than the absence of the
trap–bath split
The – split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in Southern English in England (including Received Pronunciation), Australian English, New Zealand English, Indian English, South African English and to a lesser extent in some Welsh Engli ...
. The absence of the foot–strut split is sometimes stigmatized, and speakers of non-splitting accents may try to introduce it into their speech, which sometimes results in
hypercorrection, such as by pronouncing ''butcher'' .
The name "- split" refers to the
lexical set
A lexical set is a group of words that all fall under a single category based on a single shared phonological feature.
A phoneme is a basic unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another. Most commonly, following the work ...
s introduced by and identifies the vowel phonemes in the words. From a historical point of view, however, the name is inappropriate because the word ''foot'' did not have short when the split happened, but it underwent shortening only later.
In modern standard varieties of English, such as
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geog ...
(RP) and
General American
General American English or General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm) is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or so ...
(GA), the vowel is a fairly rare phoneme. It occurs most regularly in words in ''-ook'' (like ''book, cook, hook'' etc.). It is also spelt ''-oo-'' in ''foot, good, hood, room, soot, stood, wood, wool'', and ''-oul-'' in ''could, should, would''. Otherwise it is spelt ''-u-'' (but ''-o-'' after ''w-''); such words include ''bull, bush, butcher, cushion, full, pudding, pull, push, put, sugar, wolf, woman''. More frequent use is found in recent borrowings, though sometimes in alternation with (as in ''Muslim'').
– merger
The – merger or the –
schwa merger is a merger of with that occurs in
Welsh English
Welsh English ( cy, Saesneg Gymreig) comprises the dialects of English spoken by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh. In addition to the distinctive words and gr ...
, some higher-prestige
Northern England English
The English language in Northern England has been shaped by the region's history of settlement and migration, and today encompasses a group of related dialects known as Northern England English (or, simply, Northern English in the United Kingd ...
, and in General American. The merger causes minimal pairs such as ''unorthodoxy'' and ''an orthodoxy'' to be merged. The phonetic quality of the merged vowel depends on the accent. For instance, merging General American accents have as the stressed variant, as the word-final variant. Elsewhere, the vowel surfaces as or even (GA features the
weak vowel merger
The close and mid-height front vowels of English (vowels of ''i'' and ''e'' type) have undergone a variety of changes over time and often vary by dialect.
Developments involving long vowels
Until Great Vowel Shift
Middle English had a long ...
). That can cause words such as ''hubbub'' ( in RP) to have two different vowels () even though both syllables contain the same phoneme in both merging and non-merging accents. On the other hand, in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
,
Swansea and
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
, at least the non-final variant of the merged vowel is consistently realized as mid-central , with no noticeable difference between the stressed and the unstressed allophones.
The merged vowel is typically written with , regardless of its phonetic realization. That largely matches an older canonical phonetic range of the IPA symbol , which used to be described as covering a vast central area from near-close to near-open .
Because, in unmerged accents, only appears in unstressed syllables, this merger occurs only in unstressed syllables. Word-finally, the two vowels do not contrast in any accent of English (
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
, the vowel from which
was split, could not occur in that position), and the vowel that occurs in that position approaches (the main allophone of in many accents). However, there is some dialectal variation, with varieties such as broad
Cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...
using variants that are strikingly more open than in other dialects. It is usually identified as belonging to the phoneme, even in accents without the merger, but native speakers may perceive the phonemic makeup of words such as ''comma'' to be , rather than . The open variety of occurs even in some Northern English dialects (such as
Geordie), none of which have undergone the foot–strut split, but in Geordie, it can be generalised to other positions and so not only ''comma'' but also ''commas'' can be pronounced with in the second syllable, which is rare in other accents. In contemporary Standard Southern British the final is often mid , rather than open .
All speakers of General American neutralise , and (the vowel) before , which results in an
r-colored vowel . GA lacks a truly contrastive phoneme (''furry'', ''hurry'', ''letters'' and ''transfer'' (n.), distinguished in RP as , , and all have the same r-colored in GA), and the symbol is used only to facilitate comparisons with other accents. See
hurry–furry merger for more information.
Some other minimal pairs apart from ''unorthodoxy''–''an orthodoxy'' include ''unequal'' vs. ''an equal'' as well as ''a large untidy room'' vs. ''a large and tidy room'' . However, there are few minimal pairs like that, and their use as such has been criticized by scholars such as
Geoff Lindsey because the members of such minimal pairs are structurally different. Even so, pairs of words belonging to the same lexical category, such as ''append'' vs ''up-end'' and ''aneath'' vs ''uneath'' , exist as well. There also are words for which RP always used in the unstressed syllable, such as ''pick-up'' , ''goosebumps'' , or ''sawbuck'' , which merging accents use the same as the second vowel of ''balance''. In RP, there is a consistent difference in vowel height; the unstressed vowel in the first three words is a near-open (traditionally written with ), but in ''balance'', it is a mid .
Development of /juː/
Earlier
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
distinguished the
close front rounded vowel
The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is /y/, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y. Ac ...
(occurring in loanwords from
Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to:
*Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066
* Anglo-Norman language
**Anglo-Norman literature
* Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 10 ...
like ''duke'') and the
diphthongs (occurring in words like ''new''), (occurring in words like ''few'') and (occurring in words like ''dew'').
In Late Middle English, , , and
had merged as . In Early Modern English, merged into as well.
has remained as such in some Welsh, some northern English and a few American accents. Thus, those varieties of Welsh English keep ''threw'' distinct from ''through'' . In most accents, however, the
falling diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
turned into a rising diphthong, which became the sequence . The change had taken place in London by the late 17th century. Depending on the preceding consonant and on the dialect, it either remained as or developed into by the processes of
yod-dropping
The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
H-cluster reductions
The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, inv ...
or
yod-coalescence
The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
H-cluster reductions
The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, inv ...
. That has caused the standard pronunciations of ''duke'' (or ), ''new'' , ''few'' and ''rude'' .
– merger
The – merger is a phenomenon that helps define
Scottish English
Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...
,
Northern Irish English,
Malaysian English
Malaysian English (MyE), formally known as Malaysian Standard English (MySE) (similar and related to British English), is a form of English used and spoken in Malaysia. While Malaysian English can encompass a range of English spoken in Malaysia ...
, and
Singapore English
Singapore English (SgE, SE, en-SG) (similar and related to British English) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Singapore. In Singapore, English is spoken in two main forms: Singaporean Standard English (indistinguisha ...
, in which the modern English phonemes and have merged into a single phoneme. As a result, word pairs like ''look'' and ''Luke'' are homophones, plus ''good'' and ''food'' and ''foot'' and ''boot'' rhyme.
The history of the merger dates back to two
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
phonemes: the long vowel (which ''shoot'' traces back to) and the short vowel (which ''put'' traces back to). As a result of the
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through ...
, raised to , which continues to be the pronunciation of ''shoot'' today. Meanwhile, the Middle English later adjusted to , as ''put'' is pronounced today. However, the of ''shoot'' next underwent a
phonemic split
In historical linguistics, phonological change is any sound change that alters the distribution of phonemes in a language. In other words, a language develops a new system of oppositions among its phonemes. Old contrasts may disappear, new ones ...
in which some words retained (like ''mood'') while the vowel of other words shortened to (like ''good''). Therefore, the two processes (→→ and →) resulted in a merger of the vowels in certain words, like ''good'' and ''put'', to , which is now typical of how all English dialects pronounce those two words. (See the table in the section "– split" above for more information about these early shifts.) The final step, however, was for certain English dialects under the influence of foreign languages (the
Scots language
Scots ( endonym: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonl ...
influencing Scottish English, for example) to merge the newly united vowel with the vowel (of ''mood'' and ''shoot''): the – merger. Again, this is not an internally motivated phonemic merger but the appliance of different languages' vowel systems to English lexical incidence.
[Macafee 2004: 74] The quality of this final merged vowel is usually in Scotland and North Ireland but in Singapore.
The
full–fool merger is a conditioned merger of the same two vowels specifically before , which causes pairs like ''pull''/''pool'' and ''full''/''fool'' to be homophones; it appears in many other dialects of English and is particularly gaining attention in several
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...
varieties.
Other changes
In
Geordie, the vowel undergoes an allophonic split, with the monophthong being used in morphologically-closed syllables (as in ''bruise'' ) and the diphthong being used in morphologically-open syllables word-finally (as in ''brew'' ) but also word-internally at the end of a
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
(as in ''brews'' ).
Most dialects of English turn into a diphthong, and the monophthongal is in
free variation with the diphthongal , particularly word-internally. Word-finally, diphthongs are more usual.
Compare the
identical development of the close front vowel.
The change of to is a process that occurs in many varieties of
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
in which bisyllabic has become the diphthong in certain words. As a result, "ruin" is pronounced as monosyllabic and "fluid" is pronounced .
See also
*
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 ...
*
Phonological history of English vowels
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
*
Phonological history of English consonants
This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of the English language which concern consonants.
Consonant clusters
H-cluster reductions
* Reduction of /hw/ – to /h/ in a few words (such as ''who''), but usually to , for t ...
*
Phonological history of English consonant clusters#Yod-dropping
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phonological History Of English Close Back Vowels
Splits and mergers in English phonology