English languageEnglish is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family. It originated in early medieval England and, today, is the most spoken language in the world and the third most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. English is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned English as a second language than there are native speakers.
Clipping (phonetics)In phonetics, clipping is the process of shortening the articulation of a phonetic segment, usually a vowel. A clipped vowel is pronounced more quickly than an unclipped vowel and is often also reduced. Particularly in Netherlands Dutch, vowels in unstressed syllables are shortened and centralized, which is particularly noticeable with tense vowels; compare the /oː/ phoneme in konijn Nl-konijn.ogg 'rabbit' and koning Nl-koning.ogg 'king'.
Phonological history of English close front vowelsThe 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. Middle English had a long close front vowel /iː/, and two long mid front vowels: the close-mid /eː/ and the open-mid /ɛː/. The three vowels generally correspond to the modern spellings , and respectively, but other spellings are also possible. The spellings that became established in Early Modern English are mostly still used today, but the qualities of the sounds have changed significantly.
English-language vowel changes before historic /r/In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by /r/ in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by /r/ that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowel phonemes occur before /r/ than in other positions of a word. Rhoticity in English In rhotic dialects, /r/ is pronounced in most cases. In General American English (GA), /r/ is pronounced as an approximant ɹ or ɻ in most positions, but after some vowels, it is pronounced as r-coloring.
H-droppingH-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "H-sound", [h]. The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical development or as a contemporary difference between dialects. Although common in most regions of England and in some other English-speaking countries, and linguistically speaking a neutral evolution in languages, H-dropping is often stigmatized as a sign of careless or uneducated speech.
General American EnglishGeneral American English, known in linguistics simply as General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm), is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent. In the United States it is often perceived as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics, though Americans with high education, or from the North Midland, Western New England, and Western regions of the country are the most likely to be perceived as using General American speech.
English phonologyEnglish phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants (stops, affricates, and fricatives).
Rhoticity in EnglishRhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant /r/ by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic varieties, the historical English /r/ sound is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic varieties, speakers no longer pronounce /r/ in postvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel.
Cot–caught mergerThe cot–caught merger, also known as the merger or low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in words like cot versus caught. Cot and caught (along with bot and bought, pond and pawned, etc.) is an example of a minimal pair that is lost as a result of this sound change. The phonemes involved in the cot–caught merger, the low back vowels, are typically represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɒ/ and /ɔ/, respectively (or, in North America, co-occurring with the father–bother merger, as /ɑ/ and /ɔ/).
Phonological history of English consonant clustersThe phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters. H-dropping The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, involving consonant clusters beginning with /h/ that have lost the /h/ (or become reduced to /h/) in some or all dialects. Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩ The cluster /hw/ (spelled ⟨wh⟩ since Middle English) has been subject to two kinds of reduction: Reduction to /h/ before rounded vowels (due to /hw/ being perceived as a /h/ with the labialization characteristic of that environment).
