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The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the
phonology 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 ...
of
consonant clusters In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
.


H-cluster reductions

The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, involving consonant clusters beginning with that have lost the (or become reduced to ) in some or all dialects.


Reductions of /hw/

The cluster (spelled ⟨wh⟩ since
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 ...
) has been subject to two kinds of reduction: * Reduction to before rounded vowels (due to being perceived as a with the labialization characteristic of that environment). This occurred with the word ''how'' in the
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
period, and with ''who'', ''whom'' and ''whose'' in
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 latter words having had an unrounded vowel in Old English). * Reduction to , a development that has affected the speech of the great majority of English speakers, causing them to pronounce ⟨wh-⟩ the same as ⟨w-⟩ (sometimes called the ''wine–whine merger'' or ''
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cluster reduction''). The distinction is maintained, however, in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
, most of
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, and some
Southern American English Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by Wh ...
.


Reduction of /hl/, /hr/ and /hn/

The Old English consonant clusters , and were reduced to , , and in Middle English. For example, Old English , and become ''loaf'', ''ring'' and ''nut'' in Modern English.


Reduction of /hj/

In some dialects of English the cluster is reduced to , leading to pronunciations like for ''huge'' and for ''human'', and making ''hew'' a
homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
of ''ewe'' and ''you''. This is sometimes considered a type of glide cluster reduction, but it is much less widespread than wh-reduction, and is generally
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where it is found. Aside from accents with general
H-dropping ''H''-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "''H''-sound", . The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical developmen ...
, in the
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this reduction is mostly found in accents of
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and
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; it also occurs in Cork accents of Irish English. In other dialects of English, ''hew'' and ''yew'' remain distinct; however, the cluster of ''hew'', ''human'', etc. is often reduced from to just (a
voiceless palatal fricative The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is C. It is the non-sibilant equi ...
).


Y-cluster reductions

Y-cluster reductions are reductions of clusters ending with the palatal approximant , which is the sound of in ''yes'', and is sometimes referred to as "yod", from the
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
letter yod(h), which has the sound . Many such clusters arose in dialects in which the falling diphthong (the product of the merger of several Middle English vowel sequences) became the rising diphthong . (For more information, see Phonological history of English high back vowels.) They were thus often found before the vowel , as in ''cube'' – which was in some cases modified to or before (historical) , as in ''cure'', or weakened to or as in ''argument''. They also occurred in words ending in ''-ion'' and ''-ious'', such as ''nation'' and ''precious''. This change from to , which had occurred in London by the end of the 17th century, did not take place in all dialects. A few dialects, notably in
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, as well as in some parts of northern England,
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, and the American South, still retain a ( falling) diphthong where standard English has – these dialects therefore lack the clusters with and have not been subject to the reductions described here. The diphthongs or are most commonly indicated by the spellings ''eu'', ''ew'', ''uCV'' (where ''C'' is any consonant and ''V'' is any vowel), ''ue'' and ''ui'', as in ''feud'', ''few'', ''mute'', ''cue'' and ''suit'', while the historical monophthong is commonly indicated by the spellings ''oo'' and ''ou'', as in ''moon'' and ''soup''.


Yod-dropping

Yod-dropping is the elision of the from certain syllable-initial clusters of the type described above. Particular cases of yod-dropping may affect all or some of the dialects that have the relevant clusters. The change of to in these positions (as described above) produced some clusters which would have been difficult or impossible to pronounce, which led to what John Wells calls Early Yod Dropping in which the was elided in the following environments: *After , for example ''chute'' , ''chew'' , ''juice'' *After , for example ''yew'' (compare in some conservative dialects) *After , for example ''rude'' *After stop+ clusters, for example ''blue'' The previously mentioned accents that did not have the → change were not subject to this process. Thus, for example, in much
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 ...
pairs like ''chews''/''choose'', ''yew''/''you'' and ''threw''/''through'' remain distinct: the first member of each pair has the diphthong , while the second member has : *''chews'' , ''choose'' * ''yew'' , ''you'' * ''threw'' , ''through'' Conversely, an initial does not appear in Welsh English before in words such as ''yeast'' and ''yield''. Many varieties of English have extended yod-dropping to the following environments if the is in the same syllable as the preceding consonant: *After , for example ''suit'' *After , for example ''lute'' *After , for example ''Zeus'' *After , for example ''enthuse'' Yod-dropping in the above environments used to be considered nonstandard in England but now also occurs by educated RP-speakers. (The after is not normally dropped in RP in medial positions, however: compare ''pursuit'' .) In
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 ...
, yod-dropping is found not only in the above environments but also after , and , for example ''tune'' , ''dew'' , ''new'' The lack of yod-dropping in those contexts has occasionally been held to be a
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distinguishing Canadians from Americans. However, in a survey conducted in the
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area of Southern Ontario in 1994, over 80% of respondents under the age of 40 pronounced ''student'' and ''news'' without yod. General American thus undergoes yod-dropping after all
alveolar consonant Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated wit ...
s. A few accents of
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 ...
, such as working-class
Southern American English Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by Wh ...
, however, preserve the distinction in pairs like '' do''/'' dew'' because like in the Welsh English dialects discussed above, they retain a diphthong in words in which RP has : , , etc. However, in words like ''annual'', ''menu'', ''volume'', ''Matthew'', ''continue'', etc., with a syllable break before the , there is no yod-dropping. The same applies accordingly to British and other accents; the yod is often dropped after initial , for example, but it is not dropped in words like ''volume'' or ''value''. (British speakers omit the in ''figure'', but most Americans retain it.) Uniquely, in
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and to some extent Australian English, ''debut'' is mainly pronounced without the yod as . Yod-dropping after , , and was also a traditional feature of
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 ...
speech, which continues to be the case after , but now, after and , yod-coalescence is now more common. Some East Anglian accents such as
Norfolk dialect East Anglian English is a dialect of English spoken in East Anglia, primarily in or before the mid-20th century. East Anglian English has had a very considerable input into modern Estuary English, which has largely replaced it. However, it has r ...
extend yod-dropping not only to the position after , or but also to the position after nonalveolar consonants as well: pairs like ''beauty''/''booty'', ''mute''/''moot'', ''cute''/''coot'' can then be homophonous. A well-known series of British television advertisements beginning in the 1980s featured Bernard Matthews, who was from Norfolk and described his turkeys as "bootiful" (for ''beautiful''). Such accents pronounce a in words like "use", "unit", etc. only if there is no consonant before the .


Yod-coalescence

Yod-coalescence is a process that
fuses Fuse or FUSE may refer to: Devices * Fuse (electrical), a device used in electrical systems to protect against excessive current ** Fuse (automotive), a class of fuses for vehicles * Fuse (hydraulic), a device used in hydraulic systems to protec ...
the clusters into the sibilants respectively (for the meanings of those symbols, see
English phonology 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. Amon ...
). The first two are examples of affrication. Unlike yod-dropping, yod-coalescence frequently occurs with clusters that would be considered to span a syllable boundary and so commonly occurs before unstressed syllables. For example, in ''educate'', the cluster would not usually be subject to yod-dropping in General American, as the is assigned to the previous syllable, but it commonly coalesces to . Here are a few examples of yod-coalescence universal in all English dialects: * in most words ending ''-ture'', such as ''nature'' * in ''soldier'' * in words ending with ''-ssure'' such as ''pressure'' (also in words ending with consonant+''sure'', consonant+''sion'', ''-tion'') * in words ending vowel+''sure'' such as ''measure'' (also vowel+''sion'') In some other words, the coalesced pronunciation is common in English dialects around the world, but an older non-coalesced form still exists among some speakers of standard British English: * ''educate'' (also in standard RP: ) * ''azure'' (also in RP ) * ''issue'' (also in RP ), the intermediate form being also common Coalescence can even occur across word boundaries, as in the colloquial " gotcha" (for ''got you'' ) and "whatcha" (for ''what're you'' ). In certain English accents, yod-coalescence also occurs in stressed syllables, as in ''tune'' and ''dune''. That occurs only in
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,
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,
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, Zimbabwean English, some speakers of
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,
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, South African English, and to a certain extent in New Zealand English, many speakers in
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, and even some varieties of English in Asia, like
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(many speakers because of the influence by the phonology of their mother languages). That results in pronunciations such as the following: * ''dew/due'' (RP: ) * ''tune'' (RP: ) In certain varieties such as Australian and Ugandan English, stressed can also coalesce: * ''resume'' (RP: ) * ''assume'' (RP: ) That can lead to additional homophony; for instance, ''dew'' and ''due'' come to be pronounced the same as ''Jew''. Yod-coalescence has traditionally been resisted in
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 ...
. It has certainly become established in words of the first group listed above (''nature'', ''soldier'', ''pressure'' etc.), but it is not yet universal in those of the second group (''educate'' etc.), and it does not generally occur in those of the third group (''dew'', ''tune'' etc.). See also * List of yod-dropping and coalescence homophones on
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.


Other initial cluster reductions


Reduction of /wr/ and /wl/

Old and Middle English had an initial cluster (note that /r/ does not denote here), hence the spelling of words like ''write'' and ''wrong''. This was reduced to just , apparently during the 17th century. An intermediate stage may have been an with
lip rounding Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
. As a result of this reduction, pairs of words like ''rap'' and ''wrap'', ''rite'' and ''write'', etc. are
homophones A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...
in practically all varieties of Modern English. They remain distinct in the Doric dialect of Scots, where the ''wr-'' cluster is pronounced . Alexander John Ellis reported distinctions between ''w'' and ''wr'' in
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and in several varieties of Scots in the nineteenth century. Old English also had a cluster , which reduced to during Middle English. For example, the word ''lisp'' derives from Old English ''wlisp(ian)''.


Reduction of

Middle English initial is reduced in modern English to , making pairs like ''knot/not'' and ''knight/night'' homophones. The cluster was spelled ''cn-'' in Old English; this changed to ''kn-'' in Middle English, and this spelling survives in Modern English, despite the loss of the sound. Cognates in other
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
usually still sound the initial . For example, the Old English ancestor of ''knee'' was ''cnēo'', pronounced , and the cognate word in Modern German is ''Knie'', pronounced . Most dialects of English reduced the initial cluster to relatively recently; the change seems to have taken place in educated English during the 17th century. Several German-language grammars of English from the late 17th and early 18th centuries transcribed English ''kn-'' as ''tn-'', ''dn-'', implying that a stage of assimilation (or perhaps
debuccalization Debuccalization or deoralization is a sound change or alternation in which an oral consonant loses its original place of articulation and moves it to the glottis (usually , , or ). The pronunciation of a consonant as is sometimes called aspir ...
to ) preceded that of complete reduction. The cluster is preserved in some Scots dialects, and Alexander John Ellis recorded it in parts of the Northern English counties of
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and
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in the late nineteenth century.


Reduction of /ɡn/

The Middle English initial cluster is reduced to in Modern English. Like the reduction of , this seems to have taken place during the seventeenth century. The change affected words like ''gnat'', ''gnostic'', ''gnome'', etc., the spelling with ''gn-'' being retained despite the loss of the sound. The cluster is preserved in some Scots dialects. The song ''
The Gnu "The Gnu" (sometimes known as "A Gnu", "I'm a Gnu" or "The Gnu Song") is a humorous song about a talking gnu by Flanders and Swann. The word ''gnu'' is consistently pronounced in the song with two syllables as "g-noo", with the ''g'' clearly ...
'' jokes about this silent ''g'' and other silent letters in English. In fact the ''g'' in ''gnu'' may always have been silent in English, since this loanword did not enter the language until the late 18th century. The trumpeter
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wrote a composition titled '' Gnu High'', a pun on "new high".


S-cluster reductions

In some types of
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, the initial clusters , , and are reduced by the loss of . The following stop is then subject to regular aspiration (or devoicing of the following approximant) in its new word-initial environment. Some examples of such pronunciations are: According to Wells, these reductions occur only in the broadest creole.


Final cluster reductions


NG-coalescence

NG-coalescence is a historical sound change by which the final cluster , pronounced (the being realized as a
velar nasal The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
by assimilation with the velar ), came to be pronounced as just – that is, the final was dropped, but the velar quality of the nasal remained. The change took place in educated London speech around the end of the 16th century, and explains why there is no sound at the end of words like ''fang'', ''sing'', ''wrong'' and ''tongue'' in the standard varieties of Modern English. The change in fact applies not only at the end of a word, but generally 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 ...
. If a word ending in ''-ng'' is followed by a suffix or is compounded with another word, the pronunciation normally remains. For example, in the words ''fangs'', ''sings'', ''singing'', ''singer'', ''wronged'', ''wrongly'', ''hangman'', there is no sound. An exception is the
comparative general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...
and superlative forms of adjectives: in the words ''longer/longest'', ''stronger/strongest'', ''younger/youngest'', the is pronounced in most accents. The pronunciation with is thus possible only before a vowel; before a consonant, the only possibility is a bare . In other cases (when it is not morpheme-final), word-internal ''-ng-'' does not show the effects of coalescence, and the pronunciation is retained, as in ''finger'' and ''angle''. This means that the words ''finger'' and ''singer'' do not rhyme in most modern varieties of English, although they did in Middle English. The process of NG-coalescence might therefore be referred to as the ''singer–finger
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''. Some accents, however, do not show the full effects of NG-coalescence as described above, and in these accents ''sing'' may be found with , the suffix ''-ing'' may be pronounced (though G-dropping is another possibility), and ''singer'' may rhyme with ''finger''. This is particularly associated with English English accents in an area of
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(especially
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), the West Midlands and
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in the East Midlands, and is also present in north-east varieties of
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 ...
. This includes the cities of
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(see
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),
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,
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(see
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),
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and Stoke-on-Trent. This also occurs in a small area of Kent. As this occurs around the mining area of Kent, it might be a result of large-scale migration by miners from other more northerly coalfields to Kent in the 1920s. It is also associated with some
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 ...
accents in the
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area. On the other hand, in some accents of the west of
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and
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, NG-coalescence is extended to morpheme-internal position, so that ''finger'' is pronounced (cf.
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''vinger'' ), thus rhyming with ''singer'' (although the is not dropped before a stressed syllable, as in ''engage''). It is because of NG-coalescence that is now normally regarded one of the phonemes of standard English. In Middle English, the can be regarded as an
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
of , occurring before
velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive an ...
s, but in Modern English, in view of
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 ...
s such as ''pan–pang'' and ''sin–sing'', that analysis no longer appears to hold. Nevertheless, some linguists (particularly generativists) do regard a word like ''sing'' as being
underlyingly In some models of phonology as well as morphophonology in the field of linguistics, the underlying representation (UR) or underlying form (UF) of a word or morpheme is the abstract form that a word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phon ...
, positing a rule that deletes after a nasal before a morpheme boundary, after the nasal has undergone assimilation. A problem with this view is that there are a few words in which is followed neither by a velar nor a morpheme boundary (such as ''gingham'', ''dinghy'', ''orangutan'' and ''
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
'' for those speakers who pronounce them without ), and some in which the is not deleted before a morpheme boundary (''longer'' etc., as noted above). The above-mentioned accents which lack NG-coalescence may more easily be analyzed as lacking a phoneme . The same may apply to those where NG-coalescence is extended to morpheme-internal position, since here a more consistent -deletion rule can be formulated.


G-dropping

G-dropping is a popular name for the feature of speech whereby is used in place of the standard in weak syllables. This applies especially to the ''
-ing ''-ing'' is a suffix used to make one of the inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle, as a gerund, and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective. The suffix is also found in certain words like ''morn ...
'' ending of verbs, but also in other words such as ''morning'', ''nothing'', ''ceiling'', ''Buckingham'', etc. G-dropping speakers may pronounce this syllable as or (reducing to a syllabic in some cases), while non-G-dropping speakers have ( with the weak vowel merger) or . Relative to the great majority of modern dialects, which have NG-coalescence, G-dropping does not involve the dropping of any sound, simply the replacement of the
velar nasal The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
with the
alveolar nasal The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
. The name derives from the apparent orthographic consequence of replacing the sound written with that normally written . The spelling ''-in' '' is sometimes used to indicate that a speaker uses the G-dropping pronunciation, as in ''makin' '' for ''making''. The pronunciation with rather than is a long-established one. Old English verbs had a
present participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
in ''-ende'' and a verbal noun (
gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiab ...
) form in ''-ing(e)''. These merged into a single form, written ''-ing'', but not necessarily spoken as such – the pronunciation may be inherited from the former distinct present participle form. The variant appears to have been fashionable generally during the 18th century, with the alternative being adopted in educated speech around the 1820s, possibly as a
spelling pronunciation A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounc ...
. Today, G-dropping is a feature of colloquial and non-standard speech of all regions, including stereotypically of
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 ...
,
Southern American English Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, though concentrated increasingly in more rural areas, and spoken primarily by Wh ...
and
African American Vernacular English African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urba ...
. Its use is highly correlated with the
socioeconomic Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their l ...
class of the speaker, with speakers of lower classes using with greater frequency. It has also been found to be more common among men than women, and less common in more formal styles of speech. The fact that the pronunciation was formerly associated with certain upper-class speech is reflected in the phrase ''huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’'' (used in referring to country
gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...
who frequently engaged in such
field sports Field sports are outdoor sports that take place in the wilderness or sparsely populated rural areas, where there are vast areas of uninhabited greenfields. The term specifically refer to activities that mandate sufficiently large open spaces and ...
). Further evidence that this pronunciation was once standard comes from old rhymes, as in this couplet from John Gay's 1732 pastoral '' Acis and Galatea'', set to music by Handel: :Shepherd, what art thou pursuing, :Heedless running to thy ruin? was presumably pronounced "shepherd, what art thou pursuin', heedless runnin' to thy ruin", although this would sound very odd in an opera today. Similarly, in the poetry of
Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...
(1667–1745), ''-ing'' forms consistently rhyme with words ending in , as in this verse of ''A Ballad on the Game of Traffic'', where "lining" rhymes with "fine in": :But Weston has a new-cast gown :On Sundays to be fine in, :And, if she can but win a crown, :'Twill just new dye the lining.


Reduction of /mb/ and /mn/

In later Middle English, the final cluster was reduced to just (the plum-plumb merger). This affects words such as ''lamb'' and ''plumb'', as well as derived forms with suffixes, such as ''lambs'', ''lambing'', ''plumbed'', ''plumber''. By analogy with words like these, certain other words ending in , which had no historical sound, had a silent letter added to their spelling by way of hypercorrection. Such words include ''limb'' and ''crumb''. Where the final cluster occurred, this was reduced to (the him-hymn merger), as in ''column'', ''autumn'', ''damn'', ''solemn''. (Compare French , where the cluster has been reduced to .) Both sounds are nonetheless still pronounced before vowels in certain derivatives, such as ''autumnal'', ''damnation'', ''solemnity''.


Generalized final cluster reduction

General reduction of final consonant clusters occurs in
African American Vernacular English African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urba ...
and
Caribbean English Caribbean English (CE, CarE) is a set of dialects of the English language which are spoken in the Caribbean and Liberia, most countries on the Caribbean coast of Central America, and Guyana and Suriname on the coast of South America. Carib ...
. The new final consonant may be slightly lengthened as an effect. Examples are: The
plurals The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
of ''test'' and ''desk'' may become ''tesses'' and ''desses'' by the same rule that gives plural ''messes'' from singular ''mess''.


Medial cluster reductions

When a consonant cluster ending in a stop is followed by another consonant or cluster in the next syllable, the final stop in the first syllable is often
elided In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
. This may happen within words or across word boundaries. Examples of stops that will often be elided in this way include the in ''postman'' and the in ''cold cuts'' or ''band saw''. Historically, similar reductions have taken place before syllabic consonants in certain words, leading to the silent in words like ''castle'' and ''listen''. This change took place around the 17th century. In the word ''often'', the sound later came to be re-inserted by some speakers as a
spelling pronunciation A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounc ...
. An earlier reduction that took place in early Middle English was the change of to (the sent-cent merger). This led to the modern sound of soft .


Consonant insertions


Prince–prints merger

For many speakers, an
epenthetic In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epent ...
is inserted in the final cluster , making it identical or very similar to the cluster . For example, the words ''prince'' and ''prints'' have come to be homophones or nearly so. The epenthesis is a natural consequence of the transition from the nasal to the
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
; if the raising of the soft palate (which converts a nasal to an oral sound) is completed before the release of the tongue tip (which enables a fricative sound), an intervening stop naturally results. The merger of and is not necessarily complete, however; the duration of the epenthetic in has been found to be often shorter (and the longer) than in the underlying cluster . Some speakers preserve a clearer distinction, with ''prince'' having , and ''prints'' having or . The epenthesis does not occur between syllables, in words like ''consider''.


Other insertions

The merger of and is also possible, making ''bans'' and ''pens'' sound like ''bands'' and ''pends''. However, this is less common than the merger of and described above, and in rapid speech may involve the elision of the from rather than epenthesis in .Alan Cruttenden, ''Gimson's Pronunciation of English'', Routledge 2013, p. 99. Epenthesis of a stop between a nasal and a fricative can also occur in other environments, for example: * may become (so ''pinscher'' is often pronounced like ''pincher'') * may become (so ''Samson'' becomes "Sampson", ''hamster'' becomes "hampster") * may become (so ''Kingston'' becomes "kinkston") Epenthesis may also happen in the cluster , which then becomes , so ''else'' rhymes with ''belts''. An epenthetic often intervenes in the cluster in the word ''dreamt'', making it rhyme with ''attempt''. Some originally epenthetic consonants have become part of the established pronunciation of words. This applies, for instance, to the in words like ''thimble'', ''grumble'' and ''scramble''. For the insertion of glottal stops before certain consonants, see
Glottalization Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonan ...
below.


Alterations of clusters


Assimilation

In English as in other languages, assimilation of adjacent consonants is common, particularly of a nasal with a following consonant. This can occur within or between words. For example, the in ''encase'' is often pronounced (becoming a
velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
nasal by way of assimilation with the following velar stop ), and the in ''ten men'' likely becomes , assimilating with the following bilabial nasal . Other cases of assimilation also occur, such as pronunciation of the in ''bad boy'' as . Voicing assimilation determines the sound of the endings ''-s'' (as in
plurals The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
, possessives and verb forms) and ''-ed'' (in verb forms): these are voiced (, ) following a
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 ref ...
(or vowel), but voiceless (, ) after a voiceless consonant, as in ''gets'', ''knocked''.


Glottalization

While there are many accents (such as
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 ...
) in which syllable-final is frequently
glottalized Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consona ...
(realized as a glottal stop, ) regardless of what follows it, the glottaling of in clusters is a feature even of standard accents, such as RP. There, may be heard for in such words and phrases as ''quite good'', ''quite nice'', ''nights''. More precisely, it occurs in RP when appears in the syllable coda, is preceded by a vowel, liquid or nasal, and it is followed by another consonant except (normally) a liquid or
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
in the same word, as in ''mattress''.Wells (1982), p. 261. Another possibility is pre-glottalization (or glottal reinforcement), where a glottal stop is inserted before a syllable-final stop, rather than replacing it. That can happen before , and or also before the affricate . It can occur in RP in the same environments as those mentioned above, without the final restriction so a glottal stop may appear before the , as in ''mattress''. It can also occur before a pause as in ''quite!'' spoken alone but not in ''quite easy''. In the case of , pre-glottalization is common even before a vowel, as in ''teacher''. According to Wells, this pre-glottalization originated in the 20th century (at least, it was not recorded until then). Glottalization of spread rapidly during the 20th century.


S-cluster metathesis

Final consonant clusters starting with sometimes undergo metathesis, meaning that the order of the consonants is switched. For example, the word ''ask'' may be pronounced like "ax", with the and the switched. This example has a long history: the Old English verb ''áscian'' also appeared as ''acsian'', and both forms continued into Middle English, the latter, metathesizing to "ask". The form ''axe'' appears in Chaucer: "I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housband to the Samaritan?" (''
Wife of Bath "The Wife of Bath's Tale" ( enm, The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe) is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales''. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of interest to Chaucer himse ...
's Prologue'', 1386), and was considered acceptable in literary English until about 1600. It persists in some dialects of rural England as well as in Ulster Scots as , and in
Jamaican English Jamaican English, including Jamaican Standard English, is a variety of English native to Jamaica and is the official language of the country. A distinction exists between Jamaican English and Jamaican Patois (or Creole), though not entirely ...
as , from where it has entered London English as . S-cluster metathesis has been observed in some forms of
African American Vernacular English African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urba ...
, although it is not universal, one of the most stigmatized features of AAVE and often commented on by teachers. Examples of possible AAVE pronunciations include:


Merger of /str/ and /skr/

For some speakers of
African American Vernacular English African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urba ...
, the
consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
is pronounced as . For example, the word ''street'' may be pronounced as . The form has been found to occur in
Gullah The Gullah () are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and cultu ...
and in the speech of some young African Americans born in the Southern United States. It is reported to be a highly stigmatized feature, with children who use it often being referred to speech pathologists.Dandy, E.B., ''Black Communications: Breaking Down the Barriers'', African American Images, 1991, p. 44.


Yod-rhotacization

Yod-rhotacization is a process that occurs for some
Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...
AAVE speakers, where is rhotacized to in consonant clusters, causing pronunciations like: Compare yod-dropping and yod-coalescence, described above (and also the coil–curl merger, which features the reverse process, → ).


See also

* Phonological history of the English language * Phonological history of English consonants * Phonological history of English fricatives and affricates *
H-dropping ''H''-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "''H''-sound", . The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical developmen ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Phonological History Of English Consonant Clusters Splits and mergers in English phonology Scottish English Phonotactics