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Some of these sound changes should be rearranged to fit with the chronology of the them. For instance, "/iː/, /uː/ become /əi/ and /əu/, later /ai/ and /au/." should come at the forefront of the Great Vowel Shift. This can be corroborated by multiple websites on the net as well as by pure logic. /i:/ and /u:/ must have changed before /e:/ and /o:/ became /i:/ and /u:/ respectively.
I recommend that someone go to a university library and look for a diachronic phonology of English book. I go and check University of Washington's libraries. :)
This term is rather odd, I think. The term West Germanic is normally taken to represent a dialect grouping rather than a reconstructable proto-language, isn't it? -- Pfold 22:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I have started a Northwest Germanic page, and linked from here. -- Pfold 12:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I found an IPA chart for English that explains, with examples, some of the symbols found on this page - but of course, it doesn't cover those that have been dropped from the language. The actual IPA page is of no use for the layperson in determining the meaning of any of these symbols, and individual examples (the mysterious upside-down "r") can be found only on their own pages, like Alveolar trill. I understand that, by definition, it's difficult to provide English examples for sounds that have been phased out of the language or have merged into other sounds, but until there is some available, intelligble information on what these symbols mean - just approximations, something, anything - this page is hermetic knowledge. 151.198.160.248 00:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
One major branch of this group (containing English and Frisian) shows a higher vowel, while to the east and south we see the vowel /aː/. Since the earlier Germanic vowel was /æː/, isn't it simpler to assume it just remained that way in Anglo-Frisian, but got lowered in the other groups? Otherwise you have the more complicated explanation of lowering and then raising again. This necessity to lower and then raise again also applies to Frisian, since the cognates for both Gc *ai and *æː appear as e: in Old Frisian, presupposing an earlier *æː certainly for the Gc *æː development, and probably also for the Gc *ai development. Otherwise, besides having a more complicated scenario (which, following Occam, is to be avoided unless absolutely necessary), you have to supply motivation for these back and forth swings. - Given systemic pressure, a change from æː to aː is pretty common; the fact that both Old Norse and OHG show the same change does not necessarily mean that it only happened once when they were the same language. Jakob37 15:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't Yod-dropping be included somewhere at the end of the article?
I think is one of the most obvious changes. I hadn't heard it in tv shows until about 2 or 3 years ago, now they are saying nw instead of new. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Celebandune (
talk •
contribs) 19:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
While it's useful to have this article, it is becoming very long as more details about changes are being added. And it also makes it very hard to make similar articles for other languages, because there is so much in common between them. An article on the development of German, for example, would necessarily have to duplicate all the information about Proto-Germanic and West Germanic from this article. I think it would therefore be best to split this article into several smaller articles, each of which details a particular stage of the language. Many of such pages already exist, for example West Germanic languages. This page could then be reduced to a summary of the stages, and link to the page about each stage as a main article. CodeCat ( talk) 14:33, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
Down there, in the vowel chages section, it has the option to click a link that supposedly takes you to said chart. However, clicking the link takes you to the Old English Phonology article, where no such chart exists. I see one with changes from Late OE (I think it said), and one with changes from WGmc, but not Proto Gmc. I'm just confused, is all (and, I admit, a little disappoint XD). Is the chart from WGmc the one it was talking about, or is that chart gone, or what happened? (Sorry if I'm not making sense; I'm tired and really shouldn't be on the 1n+0rn3+z right now. XP) 98.71.134.181 ( talk) 23:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I am trying to trace eight from *h₁ok̂tō(u) to 'eight'. From PIE to Proto-Germanic is easy. Fortson gives PGrm. *ahtau whereas Ringe gives *ahtōu, my own calculations end at *ahtōu (but I assume this is largely a notational difference). Getting from *ahtōu to eahta is harder. Brightening 'a' > 'æ', breaking *æht- to eaht-. But how do I get from *-tōu to -ta? Fortson (2010: 360) says that Germanic *au (= Ringe's ōu) becomes ēa, this would give me *-tēa, Wikipedia says unstressed dipthongs were monophtongized /au/ > /oː/ this would give me *-tō but neither *eahtēa nor *eahtō is the Old English word for eight. Please help. Tibetologist ( talk) 09:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Tibetologist ( talk) 12:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Many scholars regard the supposed Scandinavian origin as Cassiodorus' invention. 96.231.17.131 ( talk) 17:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
I thought I saw a really simple table of vowel developments from Old English to Modern English somewhere on Wikipedia, but I've lost it and can't figure out where on earth it was. It was much simpler than the tables in this article, which include all the complications. It basically showed the conventional developments of Old English short vowels, long vowels, and some diphthongs, with some word sets. It had a good overview of the Great Vowel Shift and the foot–strut split, which are impossible to see in the tables in this article.
If someone knows where this simple table is, I'd be really grateful if you'd point me to it, and I might want to add a modified version to this article and the article on the Great Vowel Shift. — Eru· tuon 01:45, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Under the lot–cloth split, this article reads as follows:
However, under the father-bother merger, the article says this:
As it is not mentioned when the unlengthened /ɔ/ was lowered to /ɒ/, naturally, I wonder when did such happen. I do understand that /ɒ/(IPA) says few languages make a distinction between /ɔ/ and /ɒ/. However, just as there is a distinction between their unrounded counterparts: /ʌ/ and /ɑ/, there probably would be a distinction between these vowels. Any insight is appreciated. Thank you in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.102.218.18 ( talk) 20:58, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
If the Verner's law affected the final syllable of the word oynos (one), then why was it stressed on the first syllable in P.I.E? Muonium777 ( talk) 14:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
/ɔː/ > /wɔː/ (then subsequently > /wɔ/ > /wʌ/ before [n]) was the normative sound change in the West Country, and this form for one and once eventually spread to London and then became standard. I am not familiar with the specifics of how or when this happened, but it is no mystery. See dialectical versions of other words like woak for oak. Ribose carb ( talk) 19:02, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
I have an issue with the following statements:
For the first statement, about eye having /iː/ in Middle English (>Modern English /ai/) is only true of certain regions. This variation in eye’s vowel affects present-day English as well, with some people saying /ai/ (< Middle English /iː/) and others saying /iː/ (< Middle English /eː/) for eye. In some varieties of Modern English (in e.g., North American, southern England) words like eye, flies, thigh, died, (& light, night, sight) have /ai/: the same vowel as words that had /iː/ in Middle English (e.g., time, Friday, five, white, ice, knife). However, in other varieties of Modern English (in e.g., Yorkshire, Westmorland, etc.), words like eye, flies, (light) etc. have /iː/: the same vowel as words that had /eː/ in Middle English (e.g. geese, green, cheese, weeds, creep) (see The Linguistic Atlas of England (Orton et al. 1978)). Eye couldn’t have had /iː/ in all varieties of Middle English or we would wrongly predict it to have /ai/ in Yorkshire English. I don’t know enough about Middle English to know if the issue is with the rule or the example, but I know something is wrong. Perhaps eye is not a good example of early Middle English /ei/ or perhaps the /ei/ → /iː/ change is regional only. I’m not sure.
As for statement (2), Early Modern English /eː/ (<Middle English /ɛː/) and /iː/ (<Middle English /eː/) merging is only regional. The Linguistic Atlas of England (Orton et al. 1978) reports that large areas of rural England (perhaps even most areas) still made this distinction in the 1950s, particularly in Yorkshire, Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, the west Midlands and the South West. Also, this merger is listed in both “up to Shakespeare’s English” and “Up to the American–British split.”
I’m not an expert in English historical linguistics, so I’m not going to attempt to edit this article myself, but this article treats many changes in English as universal when they only affect certain varieties. It seems to specifically ignore the rural British and Irish English speakers, prioritizing North American English and English spoken by wealthier, urban Brits. It comes off as rather classist, like the article claiming rural people don't speak Modern English, or that their English is less valuable that that of urban upper class people. Jackpaulryan ( talk) 21:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
It is surprising that there is little info on the /s/-/z/ split, especially since the rest of the article is so detailed. The only article where I find this explained properly is Middle English phonology: /info/en/?search=Middle_English_phonology#Voiced_fricatives It would probably be a good idea to introduce the information here, too. 87.126.21.225 ( talk) 15:14, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
How helpful is it to have a list of nearly every possible sound change that can happen to the θ/ð phonemes and simply state that they are occurring? This section needs to specify to which dialects each sound change is happening. Most of these sound changes have not occurred in any standard dialect of English, although they are still worth mentioning if they are occurring in other dialects. th-debuccalization and th-alveolarization are to my knowledge not even sound changes occurring to any major dialect of English. Jeryas ( talk) 15:54, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
This
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Some of these sound changes should be rearranged to fit with the chronology of the them. For instance, "/iː/, /uː/ become /əi/ and /əu/, later /ai/ and /au/." should come at the forefront of the Great Vowel Shift. This can be corroborated by multiple websites on the net as well as by pure logic. /i:/ and /u:/ must have changed before /e:/ and /o:/ became /i:/ and /u:/ respectively.
I recommend that someone go to a university library and look for a diachronic phonology of English book. I go and check University of Washington's libraries. :)
This term is rather odd, I think. The term West Germanic is normally taken to represent a dialect grouping rather than a reconstructable proto-language, isn't it? -- Pfold 22:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I have started a Northwest Germanic page, and linked from here. -- Pfold 12:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I found an IPA chart for English that explains, with examples, some of the symbols found on this page - but of course, it doesn't cover those that have been dropped from the language. The actual IPA page is of no use for the layperson in determining the meaning of any of these symbols, and individual examples (the mysterious upside-down "r") can be found only on their own pages, like Alveolar trill. I understand that, by definition, it's difficult to provide English examples for sounds that have been phased out of the language or have merged into other sounds, but until there is some available, intelligble information on what these symbols mean - just approximations, something, anything - this page is hermetic knowledge. 151.198.160.248 00:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
One major branch of this group (containing English and Frisian) shows a higher vowel, while to the east and south we see the vowel /aː/. Since the earlier Germanic vowel was /æː/, isn't it simpler to assume it just remained that way in Anglo-Frisian, but got lowered in the other groups? Otherwise you have the more complicated explanation of lowering and then raising again. This necessity to lower and then raise again also applies to Frisian, since the cognates for both Gc *ai and *æː appear as e: in Old Frisian, presupposing an earlier *æː certainly for the Gc *æː development, and probably also for the Gc *ai development. Otherwise, besides having a more complicated scenario (which, following Occam, is to be avoided unless absolutely necessary), you have to supply motivation for these back and forth swings. - Given systemic pressure, a change from æː to aː is pretty common; the fact that both Old Norse and OHG show the same change does not necessarily mean that it only happened once when they were the same language. Jakob37 15:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't Yod-dropping be included somewhere at the end of the article?
I think is one of the most obvious changes. I hadn't heard it in tv shows until about 2 or 3 years ago, now they are saying nw instead of new. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Celebandune (
talk •
contribs) 19:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
While it's useful to have this article, it is becoming very long as more details about changes are being added. And it also makes it very hard to make similar articles for other languages, because there is so much in common between them. An article on the development of German, for example, would necessarily have to duplicate all the information about Proto-Germanic and West Germanic from this article. I think it would therefore be best to split this article into several smaller articles, each of which details a particular stage of the language. Many of such pages already exist, for example West Germanic languages. This page could then be reduced to a summary of the stages, and link to the page about each stage as a main article. CodeCat ( talk) 14:33, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
Down there, in the vowel chages section, it has the option to click a link that supposedly takes you to said chart. However, clicking the link takes you to the Old English Phonology article, where no such chart exists. I see one with changes from Late OE (I think it said), and one with changes from WGmc, but not Proto Gmc. I'm just confused, is all (and, I admit, a little disappoint XD). Is the chart from WGmc the one it was talking about, or is that chart gone, or what happened? (Sorry if I'm not making sense; I'm tired and really shouldn't be on the 1n+0rn3+z right now. XP) 98.71.134.181 ( talk) 23:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I am trying to trace eight from *h₁ok̂tō(u) to 'eight'. From PIE to Proto-Germanic is easy. Fortson gives PGrm. *ahtau whereas Ringe gives *ahtōu, my own calculations end at *ahtōu (but I assume this is largely a notational difference). Getting from *ahtōu to eahta is harder. Brightening 'a' > 'æ', breaking *æht- to eaht-. But how do I get from *-tōu to -ta? Fortson (2010: 360) says that Germanic *au (= Ringe's ōu) becomes ēa, this would give me *-tēa, Wikipedia says unstressed dipthongs were monophtongized /au/ > /oː/ this would give me *-tō but neither *eahtēa nor *eahtō is the Old English word for eight. Please help. Tibetologist ( talk) 09:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Tibetologist ( talk) 12:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Many scholars regard the supposed Scandinavian origin as Cassiodorus' invention. 96.231.17.131 ( talk) 17:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
I thought I saw a really simple table of vowel developments from Old English to Modern English somewhere on Wikipedia, but I've lost it and can't figure out where on earth it was. It was much simpler than the tables in this article, which include all the complications. It basically showed the conventional developments of Old English short vowels, long vowels, and some diphthongs, with some word sets. It had a good overview of the Great Vowel Shift and the foot–strut split, which are impossible to see in the tables in this article.
If someone knows where this simple table is, I'd be really grateful if you'd point me to it, and I might want to add a modified version to this article and the article on the Great Vowel Shift. — Eru· tuon 01:45, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Under the lot–cloth split, this article reads as follows:
However, under the father-bother merger, the article says this:
As it is not mentioned when the unlengthened /ɔ/ was lowered to /ɒ/, naturally, I wonder when did such happen. I do understand that /ɒ/(IPA) says few languages make a distinction between /ɔ/ and /ɒ/. However, just as there is a distinction between their unrounded counterparts: /ʌ/ and /ɑ/, there probably would be a distinction between these vowels. Any insight is appreciated. Thank you in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.102.218.18 ( talk) 20:58, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
If the Verner's law affected the final syllable of the word oynos (one), then why was it stressed on the first syllable in P.I.E? Muonium777 ( talk) 14:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
/ɔː/ > /wɔː/ (then subsequently > /wɔ/ > /wʌ/ before [n]) was the normative sound change in the West Country, and this form for one and once eventually spread to London and then became standard. I am not familiar with the specifics of how or when this happened, but it is no mystery. See dialectical versions of other words like woak for oak. Ribose carb ( talk) 19:02, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
I have an issue with the following statements:
For the first statement, about eye having /iː/ in Middle English (>Modern English /ai/) is only true of certain regions. This variation in eye’s vowel affects present-day English as well, with some people saying /ai/ (< Middle English /iː/) and others saying /iː/ (< Middle English /eː/) for eye. In some varieties of Modern English (in e.g., North American, southern England) words like eye, flies, thigh, died, (& light, night, sight) have /ai/: the same vowel as words that had /iː/ in Middle English (e.g., time, Friday, five, white, ice, knife). However, in other varieties of Modern English (in e.g., Yorkshire, Westmorland, etc.), words like eye, flies, (light) etc. have /iː/: the same vowel as words that had /eː/ in Middle English (e.g. geese, green, cheese, weeds, creep) (see The Linguistic Atlas of England (Orton et al. 1978)). Eye couldn’t have had /iː/ in all varieties of Middle English or we would wrongly predict it to have /ai/ in Yorkshire English. I don’t know enough about Middle English to know if the issue is with the rule or the example, but I know something is wrong. Perhaps eye is not a good example of early Middle English /ei/ or perhaps the /ei/ → /iː/ change is regional only. I’m not sure.
As for statement (2), Early Modern English /eː/ (<Middle English /ɛː/) and /iː/ (<Middle English /eː/) merging is only regional. The Linguistic Atlas of England (Orton et al. 1978) reports that large areas of rural England (perhaps even most areas) still made this distinction in the 1950s, particularly in Yorkshire, Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, the west Midlands and the South West. Also, this merger is listed in both “up to Shakespeare’s English” and “Up to the American–British split.”
I’m not an expert in English historical linguistics, so I’m not going to attempt to edit this article myself, but this article treats many changes in English as universal when they only affect certain varieties. It seems to specifically ignore the rural British and Irish English speakers, prioritizing North American English and English spoken by wealthier, urban Brits. It comes off as rather classist, like the article claiming rural people don't speak Modern English, or that their English is less valuable that that of urban upper class people. Jackpaulryan ( talk) 21:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
It is surprising that there is little info on the /s/-/z/ split, especially since the rest of the article is so detailed. The only article where I find this explained properly is Middle English phonology: /info/en/?search=Middle_English_phonology#Voiced_fricatives It would probably be a good idea to introduce the information here, too. 87.126.21.225 ( talk) 15:14, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
How helpful is it to have a list of nearly every possible sound change that can happen to the θ/ð phonemes and simply state that they are occurring? This section needs to specify to which dialects each sound change is happening. Most of these sound changes have not occurred in any standard dialect of English, although they are still worth mentioning if they are occurring in other dialects. th-debuccalization and th-alveolarization are to my knowledge not even sound changes occurring to any major dialect of English. Jeryas ( talk) 15:54, 14 February 2024 (UTC)