CarmenCarmona
February 16, 2010, 09:44 AM
SOUND CHANGES IN THE UK
‘The Great Divide’ is the name that was given to the changes that took place around 1750 when American and British English, which shared common features, began a separate evolution. Specifically, the following sound changes occurred in the British Isles, not everywhere though:
Until the 17th century, words such as ‘put-putt’ or ‘could-cud’ were homophones, that is to say they were pronounced in the same way, all of them containing /ʊ/. However, the latter phoneme split into /ʌ/ and those words could be perfectly distinguished then.
In this same period, the ‘NG-coalescence’ phenomenon rose, which consisted on words that ended in /ŋg/ merged into /ŋ/ and finally into /n/. As a result, words such as ‘singer’ and ‘sinner’ became homophones.
In the 18th century, the phoneme /r/ started being dropped in post-vocalic position, bringing about the distinction between rhotic and non-rhotic accents.
In the 19th century, the monophthong /e:/ turned into /eɪ/ for words such as ‘face’ or ‘made’ and the monophthongs /o:/ and /u:/ became /ou/ and /əʊ/ respectively, for words such as ‘go’ or ‘stone’. This phenomenon is known as ‘Long-mid diphthonging’.
At around this time, ‘H-dropping’ also became widespread all over England causing words such as ‘hill’ and ‘ill’ to be homophones.
To conclude, the 20th century was characterized by two phenomena: ‘Happy Tensing’, whereby the phoneme /ɪ/ was lengthened into /i:/ in final unstressed vowels such as ‘coffee’ or ‘very’; and finally, ‘L-vocalization’ led to the transition from ‘clear l’ /l/ to ‘dark l’ /ɬ/ and lastly to the vowel /ʊ/ in post-vocalic position, thus a word like ‘milk’ is pronounced as /mɪʊk/.
This post might be a bit off-topic but it's interesting anyway.
I don't know what's wrong with the prints, by the way!
‘The Great Divide’ is the name that was given to the changes that took place around 1750 when American and British English, which shared common features, began a separate evolution. Specifically, the following sound changes occurred in the British Isles, not everywhere though:
Until the 17th century, words such as ‘put-putt’ or ‘could-cud’ were homophones, that is to say they were pronounced in the same way, all of them containing /ʊ/. However, the latter phoneme split into /ʌ/ and those words could be perfectly distinguished then.
In this same period, the ‘NG-coalescence’ phenomenon rose, which consisted on words that ended in /ŋg/ merged into /ŋ/ and finally into /n/. As a result, words such as ‘singer’ and ‘sinner’ became homophones.
In the 18th century, the phoneme /r/ started being dropped in post-vocalic position, bringing about the distinction between rhotic and non-rhotic accents.
In the 19th century, the monophthong /e:/ turned into /eɪ/ for words such as ‘face’ or ‘made’ and the monophthongs /o:/ and /u:/ became /ou/ and /əʊ/ respectively, for words such as ‘go’ or ‘stone’. This phenomenon is known as ‘Long-mid diphthonging’.
At around this time, ‘H-dropping’ also became widespread all over England causing words such as ‘hill’ and ‘ill’ to be homophones.
To conclude, the 20th century was characterized by two phenomena: ‘Happy Tensing’, whereby the phoneme /ɪ/ was lengthened into /i:/ in final unstressed vowels such as ‘coffee’ or ‘very’; and finally, ‘L-vocalization’ led to the transition from ‘clear l’ /l/ to ‘dark l’ /ɬ/ and lastly to the vowel /ʊ/ in post-vocalic position, thus a word like ‘milk’ is pronounced as /mɪʊk/.
This post might be a bit off-topic but it's interesting anyway.
I don't know what's wrong with the prints, by the way!