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CONSONANT CHANGES IN ENGLISH.
English has undergone changes in spelling and phonology at every stage in its history. From the eight century onwards these sound shifts are reflected in spellings found in manuscripts that have been preserved.
English spelling used to represent speech sounds in a relatively simple way, as in the Old English period. But a variety of changes have led to a much more complex system. The first change was the adoption of the Roman alphabet, and Latin letters substituted Runes and Celtic symbols used in OE. This caused, however, a problem in representation, since the Latin graphemes had to represent sounds which existed only in OE. (Mossé, 1979: 39) Later, with the influence of French, new letters were introduces, which caused again changes in English spelling and phonology.
Some of the reasons for changes were due to the evolution of the language itself or intra-linguistic factors, and to social or extra-linguistic factors, such as the contact with foreign speakers, the way in which speakers used the language, the desire to make pronunciation easier and at the same time the desire to regularise and standardise the spelling rules and conventions. (Culpeper, 1997: 154).
Consonants have changed by different processes. The most important were metathesis and assimilation. Spelling changes were observed in the replacement of consonants and consonant clusters, and they led to sound changes. Those sound shifts occurred in different aspects, such as the place of articulation, the manner of articulation, the position of the velum or the glottal articulation. Thus, consonants were merged, split or omitted. (Lehmann, 1992: 190-98).
The aim of this essay is to describe the main spelling and phonological changes that have taken place in the English consonants along the history of the language. It would be very complicated to deal with all the particularities in each dialect, therefore, we chose to state the most significant changes from a global perspective in order to obtain a clearer view, which will be easier to understand and remember.
1. THE CONSONANTS IN OLD ENGLISH.
The consonants present in the OE alphabet were already the result of two main changes in the Germanic languages: the Grimm’s Law and the Verner’s Law. Some of them came from the runic and Irish alphabet. In order to pronounce a long consonant, it was doubled. Here we have a comprehensive sample of the OE alphabet:
Old English had a phonemic writing system, since each alphabetical symbol stood for a single distinct sound, each letter was pronounced and there were no ‘silent’ letters. This is an example of the possible pronunciations that OE consonants had, which were considered as allophones:
(http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm)
However, some of the consonants were pronounced differently depending on the letters which surrounded them. For example:
- Unvoiced fricatives /f/ and /s/ became voiced /v/, /z/ when they occurred between voiced sounds: fot beside lufu , or sendan beside ceosan.
- The letter < þ > and < ð > could be both /θ/ and /ð/, and they could be interchangeable.
- The letter **** was pronounced /x/ after back vowels: boht and /ç/ after front vowels: sih þ. In initial position before a vowel, it sounded /h/: h æ t.
- The letter **** was pronounced /k/ before back vowels (a,o,u): loc,
cumbol, but /t ∫/ before front vowels (e, i, y, æ, ea, eo): cirice, c æ ft. This
process was known as ‘palatalisation’.
- The letter <> had three different pronunciations: /g/ before back vowels and consonants: gal, gl æ d. Before a front vowel or at the end of a syllable, it was pronounced /j/: gear, bodig. Finally, in other circumstances (as between and after back vowels or and ) it sounded /ɣ /: plog, halga, boga.
As a result of the social and political upheaval caused by the Norman Conquest, the West Saxon system of punctuation was in time no longer used. Writers used
spellings that tended to match the pronunciation of their spoken dialect, and scribes
adapted spellings to suit French spelling conventions, adding and removing letters.
(Freeborn, 2006: 83). Therefore, there was an orthographic variability between the old and the new forms, and spelling was purely phonetic until about the fifteenth century. (
http://www.ualberta.ca/~sreimer/ms-course/course/engl-his.htm).
Changes in spelling.
The most significant change in the written language of England during the twelfth
century was, to a considerable extent, a matter of mere spelling. When scribes substituted insular consonants by French characters, they had no orthographical traditions to guide them, and had to spell the words phonetically according to French rules. The main changes dealing with consonants were:
- The use of **** instead of the old , when it was placed before front
vowels, as in cirice , pronounced /t ∫/. It remained or before back
vowels: wyrcan , sounding /k/.
- The OE pronounced /sk/ changed to /∫/ as in sceamu (shame). Since a spelling for this sound did not exist in French, there were several forms for representing it, as , , , or : OE scyld was spelt sseld, shilde, schilde, shield.
- The letter was replaced by 2 forms: the <> and the continental .
- The French **** took the place of as in cwen- quene.
- The **** between vowels (pronounced /v / ) was replaced by /u/ or /v/, which was used indifferently for vowel and consonant: OE ofer beside ME over.
- Also common was the metathesis of the consonant cluser into (sounding current /x/): askian was pronounced /axian/. Metathesis also occurred in the as in birnan/brinnan.
- Letter was introduced for the sound /g/, before represented by <ʒ >. At the same time, <ʒ> changed to < ȝ> and remained for the sound /j/ as in La ȝ amon. It very early obtained a third use, being employed (without indicating any change of pronunciation) instead of the OE in certain positions, as in kni ȝt, ibroȝt, rou ȝ.
- The letter < ƿ > went out of use and was replaced by the French .
- The letter < þ > was substituted by , but it was still present in words like the demonstrative articles. It even became similar to , as in (the) and (that).
- Words with initial **** were beginning to lose it. This drop dealt with French absence of pronunciation of this consonant. It has led to irregular pronunciation nowadays with the French words beginning with , some of them losing the / h/ even in spelling, as in able. (Jordan, 1974: 91-97).
Another significant change in spelling was provided by Orm, since in his Ormulum , he uses an orthographic method to indicate the quantity of the vowels. The shortness of a vowel, in a syllable ending with a consonant, was shown by doubling the following consonant, as in Crisstenndom. His elaborate system found no imitators, and it is one of the most important aids that we possess for ascertaining the English pronunciation of the time. (Brinton and Arnovick, 2006: 18).
Changes in pronunciation. Very considerable changes took place in the sounds of the language without affecting the spelling, even when there is no general prejudice against deviations from traditional correctness of orthography. Pronunciation, as a general rule, is not altered deliberately, but unconsciously. (Lehman, 1992: 190) The fact that Middle English was a mixture of many dialects had as a result that
< þ > < th> /ð/ the
/q/ that
3. EARLY MODERN ENGLISH: TOWARDS STANDARDISATION.
The change from Middle English to Early Modern English was not just a matter of vocabulary or pronunciation changing: it was the beginning of a new era in the history of English. The introduction of printing had a great impact on the fixation of spelling conventions. An era of linguistic change in a language with large variations in dialect required a new era of a more standardised language.
Changes in spelling: The orthography in Early Modern English was similar to that of our modern day orthography. Spelling was phonetic and instable. For example, the word acuity may be spelled as either acuity or acuitie. Regarding consonant, we find some changes and respellings:
- The letter , if it began a word would become a : use 2 19 2 vſe. If was in middle position, it would become a : moved 2 19 2 moued.
- Latin-derived words ending in <-al> often added another to the end, as in maternal^ 2 19 2 maternall, actual 2 19 2 actuall.
- The long s <ſ > supplemented for initial or medial position. The would be used for final position. Moreover, a double s (ss) would be represented as <ſſ> as in happineſſe, but in the seventeenth century, it changed to : happinesſe.
- Words ending in <-ic> or <-ac> often became <-ique> and <-aque>: prophetic 2 19 2 prophetique. Later, in the seventeenth century, <-ick> and <-ack> were used: speak 2 19 2 ſpeacke.
- The letter was not present as a capital letter, instead, two captial were used: Weather 2 19 2 VVeather, When 2 19 2 VVhen.
- One-syllable words often doubled the last consonant and added a silent : man^ 2 19 2 manne, run 2 19 2 runne.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English) Changes in pronunciation:
- (^) Some consonant clusters were simplified and ‘silent’ consonants appeared:
- was pronounced /n/: (g)naw, (g)narl.
- sounded /n/: (k)now, (k)nit.
- <-mb> became /m/: dum(b), plum(b).
- <-nds> was pronounced /ns/: han(d)some, landscape.
- <-stn> became /sn/: lis(t)en.
- <-stl> sounded /sl/: cas(t)le.
- <-ftn> was pronounced /fn/: of(t)en.
- sounded /ɹ /: (w)rite, (w)reck.
- When a past participle or past tense form ended in <-ed>, but was not pronounced, it would change to <-'d> or change into a . When it was pronounced it remained as /-ed/: touched 2 19 2 touch'd, cursed 2 19 2 curſt, matchèd^ 2 19 2 matched. (Burnley 1992: 98-99).
- A new phoneme /ŋ/ appeared due to the reduction of /ng/. Therefore, /n/ and /ŋ/ were no longer allophones and became separate phonemes: sin versus sing.
- (^) The phoneme / ʒ/ also appeared for words borrowed from French as garage or leisure. (Smith, 1996: 78).
- MODERN ENGLISH: THE BIRTH OF THE STANDARD. Partly under the influence of printers’ practices, spelling became more stable in the fifteenth century, but it was Johnson's and Webster's dictionaries in the eighteenth
This is a summary of the main orthographic changes occurred from Old English up to Present-day English.
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/HistLetters.htm) CONCLUSION.
English, like all living languages, has been and still is in a continuous change. We have seen that many modifications have been done on spelling and pronunciation, by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors.
In the Old English period, there were significant changes in the letters’ shape, since previous phonological shifts were made in the Germanic family. Each letter could represent several sounds according to its position, and the different pronunciations were considered as allophones.
During the Middle English period major changes took place under the influence of French: words were respelled, new letters were introduced and new sounds appeared as well as new symbols for representing them. Scribes modified the manuscripts according to their local dialects, and a rising standard was starting to define social classes.
The Early Modern English was a crucial period in the creation of a common standard language. Spellings were adjusted and sounds started to be fixed, and up to the Modern English period, Standard English would be consolidated.
Working on the consonant change has been challenging for us, since there was a large amount of particularities chronologically and dialectally speaking. We have learnt that every present-day sound and spelling has its historical reason. Finding those reasons have certainly helped us to understand the current English language.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
- Brinton, L. and Arnovick, L. (2006). The English Language: A Linguistic History. Canada: Oxford University Press.
- Burnley, D. (1992) A History of the English Language. London: Longman.
- Culpeper, J (1997). History of English. London: Routledge.
- Freeborn, D. (2006). From Old English to Standard English. A course Book in Language variation across Time. 3 rd^ edition. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
- Hughes, G. (1988) A Social History of the English Vocabulary. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
- Jordan, R. (1974) Handbook of Middle English Grammar: Phonology. The Hague: Mouton.
- Lehmann, W. (1992) Historical Linguistics. London: Routledge.
- Mossé, F. (1979) A Handbook of Middle English. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Smith, J. (1996) A Historical study of English Function, Form and Change. London: Routledge.
WEB REFERENCES.
