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The phonological system of the Old English language underwent many changes during the period of its existence. These included a number of vowel shifts, and the palatalisation of velar consonants in many positions. For historical developments prior to the Old English period, see Proto-Germanic language.
However, each vowel has split into a number of different pronunciations in Modern English, depending on the phonological context. The short /a/, for example, has split into seven different vowels, all still spelled a but pronounced differently: /æ/ when not in any of the contexts indicated below, as in man, sack, wax, etc.
Tense–lax neutralization refers to a neutralization, in a particular phonological context in a particular language, of the normal distinction between tense and lax vowels. In some varieties of English, this occurs in particular before /ŋ/ and (in rhotic dialects ) before coda /r/ (that is, /r/ followed by a consonant or at the end of a word ...
For example, cniht ('boy') /knixt/, may have been phonetically realized as [kniçt]. The use of the sound [ç] in this position is supported by developments in English pronunciation seen from the thirteenth century onward: original /x/ sometimes became /f/ after a back vowel (e.g. rough, tough, trough), but this change is never seen after a ...
For example, ring ('ring') is [riŋɡ]; [ŋ] did not occur alone in Middle English, unlike in Modern English. [ç, x] are allophones of /h/ in syllable-final position after front and back vowels, respectively. Based on evidence from Old English and Modern English, /l/ and /r/ apparently had velarised counterparts or allophones [lˠ] and [rˠ].
The following table shows the 24 consonant phonemes found in most dialects of English, plus /x/, whose distribution is more limited. Fortis consonants are always voiceless, aspirated in syllable onset (except in clusters beginning with /s/ or /ʃ/), and sometimes also glottalized to an extent in syllable coda (most likely to occur with /t/, see T-glottalization), while lenis consonants are ...
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A simple example is the rise of the contrast between nasal and oral vowels in French. A full account of this history is complicated by the subsequent changes in the phonetics of the nasal vowels, but the development can be compendiously illustrated via the present-day French phonemes /a/ and /ã/: