Phonological history of English consonants

This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of English which concern consonants. The phonological history of English consonants involves major shifts from Old English to Modern English, characterized by cluster simplifications, palatalization, voicing changes, and loss of sounds. Influences from Old Norse and also from French introduced new sounds, while internal processes like assimilation and lenition streamlined the system, eventually creating the contemporary consonant inventory of English.

Consonant clusters

H-cluster reductions

Reduction of /hw/ – to in a few words, but usually to, for the great majority of English speakers.
Phonological [history of English consonant clusters#HL|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.

Y-cluster reductions

Yod-dropping – the elision of in certain clusters, depending on dialect.
Yod-coalescence, whereby the clusters,, and become,, and respectively.

Other initial cluster reductions

Reduction of /wr/ to, in words like wrap, around the 17th century.
Reduction of /kn/ and /ɡn/ to, in words like knot and gnome, around the 17th century.
S-cluster reduction, in some types of Caribbean English, where for example spit is pronounced pit.

Final cluster reductions

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

Other changes involving clusters

Reduction of /ts/ to /s/ – a Middle English reduction that produced the modern sound of soft .
Medial cluster reduction – elision of certain stops in medial clusters, such as the in postman.
Insertion (epenthesis) of stops after nasals in certain clusters, for example making prince sound like prints, and dreamt rhyme with attempt.
Assimilation of certain consonants in clusters, especially nasals.
Glottalization and pre-glottalization in certain environments, depending on dialect.
Certain other changes occurring in AAVE, including S-cluster metathesis, the merger of /str/ and /skr/, and yod-rhotacization.

Stops

Aspiration

The voiceless stops,, are typically aspirated when they begin a stressed syllable, becoming, 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.
In certain accents, such as Geordie and in some speakers of Dublin English,, and can be preaspirated when they come at the end of a word or utterance, becoming.

Flapping

Flapping, or tapping, is a process whereby or is pronounced as the alveolar flap in certain positions, especially between vowels. It may be perceived as, for example, the pronunciation of butter as "budder". It occurs especially in North American English and in Australian and New Zealand English.

Voicing

Apart from the T-voicing that results from flapping, some dialects feature other instances of voicing or lenition of the stops, and. In Geordie, these stops may be fully voiced in intervocalic position. In Devon, stops and other obstruents may be voiced between vowels and when final after a weak vowel, so for example the and in jacket may approach the realizations and, making the word sound similar or identical to jagged.

Glottalization

Stops, chiefly the voiceless stops, and especially, are frequently glottalized or pre-glottalized in certain positions; that is, a stop may be replaced with the glottal stop, 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.

Fricatives and affricates

H-dropping and H-insertion

H-dropping is the omission of initial 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 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.

Loss of velar and palatal fricatives

The voiceless velar and palatal fricative sounds and, considered to be allophones of and reflected by the 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 became, as in laugh.
A is still heard in words of the above type in certain Scots and northern English traditional dialect speech. A 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 in England on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border and close to the Scottish border in the late nineteenth century.
For details of the above phenomena, see H-loss (Middle English). See also the vocalization of the voiced velar fricative .

Voiced/voiceless splits

The Old English fricatives had voiceless and voiced allophones, the voiced forms occurring in certain environments, such as between vowels, and in words originating from the Kentish dialect, word-initially. In Early Middle English, partly by borrowings from French, they split into separate phonemes:. See Middle English phonology – Voiced fricatives.
Also in the Middle English period, the voiced affricate took on phonemic status.. It occurred in Middle English not only in words like brigge in which it had been present in Old English but also in French loanwords like juge and general.
After the Middle English period, a fourth voiced fricative,, developed as a phoneme. It arose from yod-coalescence in words like measure, and from late French loanwords like rouge and beige.

Dental fricatives

As noted above, the Old English phoneme split into two phonemes in early Middle English: a voiceless dental fricative and a voiced dental fricative. Both continued to be spelt.
Certain English accents feature variant pronunciations of these sounds. These include fronting, where they merge with and ; stopping, where they approach and ; alveolarisation, where they become and ; and debuccalisation, where becomes before a vowel.

Initial fricative voicing

Initial fricative voicing is a process that occurs in some traditional accents of the English West Country, where the fricatives,, and are voiced to,, and when they occur at the beginning of a word. In these accents, sing and farm are pronounced and. The phenomenon is well known as a stereotypical feature, but is now rare in actual speech. Some such pronunciations have spread from these dialects to become standard usage: the words vane, vat and vixen all had initial in Old English.
A similar phenomenon occurred in both German and Dutch.

voiceless	voiced	IPA	-
fail	vale		-
fail	veil		-
fairy	vary		-
fan	van		-
fast	vast		-
fat	vat		-
fault	vault		-
fear	veer		-
fecks	vex		-
fee	vee		-
feel	veal		-
feeler	velar		-
fend	vend		-
ferry	very		-
fetch	vetch		-
fetter	vetter		-
fest	vest		-
few	view		-
fie	vie		-
figure	vigour		-
file	vial		With vile-vial merger.
file	vile		-
fill	vill		-
final	vinyl		-
fine	vine		-
fizz	viz.		-
focal	vocal		-
foist	voiced		-
folly	volley		-
foul	vowel		With vile-vial merger.
fowl	vowel		With vile-vial merger.
fox	vox		-
sag	zag		-
said	zed		-
sane	Zane		-
sap	zap		-
sax	zax		-
scene	zine		-
sea	zee		-
seal	zeal		-
see	zee		-
seen	zine		-
seine	Zane		-
seize	zees		-
sewn	zone		-
sing	zing		-
sink	zinc		-
Sioux	zoo		-
sip	zip		-
sit	zit		-
sone	zone		-
sown	zone		-
thigh	thy		-
thou	thou		-
thrall	drawl		-
thread	dread		-
threw	drew		-
throne	drone		-
through	drew		-
thrown	drone		-
thrift	drift		-
thrive	drive		-
thriven	driven		-
throve	drove		-

Other changes

In Glasgow and some other urban Scottish accents, is given an apico-alveolar articulation, which auditorily gives an impression of a retracted pronunciation similar to. Confusion between and occurs in some African varieties of English, so ship may be pronounced like sip. In Zulu English, it is reported that is sometimes replaced by.
The labiodental fricative is sometimes merged with the corresponding bilabial stop. Some speakers of Caribbean English and Mexican American English merge with, making ban and van homophones. The distinction of from is one of the last phonological distinctions commonly learnt by English-speaking children generally, and pairs like dribble/drivel may be pronounced similarly even by adults.
In Indian English, is often pronounced like, sounded as or as a labiodental approximant. Some Indian speakers make various changes in the pronunciation of other fricatives: may become or ; may become or ; may become, or, may become or ; may become ; may become a bilabial or an aspirated stop. For and, see th-stopping.
For some speakers of Mexican American English, initial and may be used in place of each other, so jet may be pronounced as yet or vice versa.
In Indian South African English, the typical realization of the labiodental fricatives are the approximants.

Approximants

Insertion and deletion of /j/ and /w/

In parts of the west and southwest of England, initial may be dropped in words like wool and woman; occasionally, though, a may be inserted before certain vowels, as in "wold" for old and "bwoiling" for boiling. Similarly, initial may be lost in words like yeast and yes, and may be added in words like earth.
For the much more widespread deletion of in consonant clusters, see yod-dropping . For the historical loss of in such words as who and write, see pronunciation of wh and reduction of /wr/.

Realizations of /r/

Old and Middle English was historically pronounced as an alveolar trill,. At some time between later Middle English and Early Modern English, it changed to an alveolar approximant,, in the standard accents. Some Scottish speakers, however, retain the original trilled .
Another possible realization of is the alveolar tap,. This is common 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.
In most General American, is before a vowel, but when not followed by a vowel is generally realized as an r-colored vowel,, or as r-coloring on the preceding vowel. In many accents of English, including RP, is lost altogether when not followed by a vowel – for this, see rhoticity in English. For vowel changes before, see English-language vowel changes before historic /r/.
A uvular realization of, 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,, for. To some listeners this can sound like a.

Developments involving /l/

Velarization of in positions where there is no vowel following, producing a "dark L", is a phenomenon that goes back to Old English times. 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 followed the vowel or, the either disappeared or underwent vocalization, usually with some kind of diphthongization or compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. This affected:

Words with final and, which underwent partial L-vocalization, with the insertion of between the vowel and the. The resulting diphthongs developed respectively into modern in words like all, ball, call, and into the vowel in words like poll, scroll and control. Some words of more recent origin did not undergo these changes, such as pal, doll and alcohol; the word shall is also unaffected.
Words with and followed by a coronal consonant, which followed the same pattern as those above, although here in modern RP the of the first set is mostly replaced by a short, as in words like salt, halt, falter, bald, false, Walsh. Words in the second set, having the vowel, include old, cold and bolt. The word solder has a variety of pronunciations; in North America the is often dropped.
Words with and, which again followed the same pattern, but also dropped the, so that words like chalk, talk and walk now have, while folk and yolk rhyme with smoke.
Words with or, which simply lost the . The word salve is often pronounced with the ; the name Ralph may be,, or. Words like solve were not affected, although golf dropped the in some British accents.
Words with and, which lost the and lengthened the vowel. Words like alms, balm, calm, Chalmers, qualm, palm and psalm now generally have in the standard accents, while holm and Holmes are homophones of home. Some accents have reintroduced the in these words as a spelling pronunciation. The word salmon generally retains a short vowel despite the loss of.
A few words with or, such as Alban and Albany, which have developed to, and Holborn, which has the vowel and no. Words like scalp and Alps are unaffected.

As noted under some of the points above, 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 .
The has also been lost in the words would and should. The word could was never pronounced with ; its spelling results from analogy with the former words.
Modern L-vocalization is a feature of certain accents, particularly in London English and in near-RP speech that has been influenced by it, in some New York and Philadelphia speech, in the American South and African American Vernacular English, and in New Zealand English. Also in AAVE and some southern American accents, L-dropping may occur when the sound comes after a vowel and before a labial consonant in the same syllable, causing pronunciations like for help and for self.
In some accents around Bristol, "intrusive L" is found, where an 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.
In some modern English accents, significant pre-L breaking occurs when follows certain vowels. Here the vowel develops a centering offglide before the. 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. Similar pre-L schwa-insertion may also occur after, leading to pronunciations like for world.

Sound changes involving final consonants

Final obstruent devoicing

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: and 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. 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 : bad is pronounced while bat is.

Final consonant deletion

Final consonant deletion is the nonstandard deletion of single consonants in syllable-final position occurring for some AAVE speakers resulting in pronunciations like:

bad -
con -
foot -
five -
good -

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 for kids.