Phonological history of English
Sound changes
Summary
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 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.
Originally created by Jimp
12/22/2005, 6:48:11 AM
Modified
5/4/2026, 3:45:50 PM
Recent revisions
early change, not a late one
short o did not exist yet
/* Examples of sound changes */ The /w/ in ONE seems to have been much later
/* Old English period */ Fixed link "Breaking of front vowels"
Fixed typo
Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.9.5
/* Up to Shakespeare's English */
/* Up to Shakespeare's English */ "salt" and "bolt" are often *not* pronounced like that in modern English, and often have different vowels from "tall" and "roll", due to further changes that have happened in many accents.
/* After American–British split, up to World War II */
/* Up to the American–British split */
Removed redundant markup (Lang templates have italics built in)
Templates, typos
Templates
/* References */
Removed parameters. | [[:en:WP:UCB|Use this bot]]. [[:en:WP:DBUG|Report bugs]]. | #UCB_CommandLine
/* Changes by time period from after American-British split to after World War II */ Unrounded /ɒ/ didn't lengthen, North American English lost phonemic length instead and merges /ɑː/ because of this.
/* Old English period */
