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Old English phonology is the pronunciation system of Old English, the Germanic language spoken on Great Britain from around 450 to 1150 and attested in a body of written texts from the 7th–12th centuries.
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.
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was an early form of English in medieval England. It is different from Early Modern English, the language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible, and from Middle English, the language of Geoffrey Chaucer. See Old English phonology for more detail on the sounds of Old English.
Early Old English (c. 650–900), the period of the oldest manuscript traditions, with authors such as Cædmon, Bede, Cynewulf and Aldhelm. Late Old English (c. 900–1150), the final stage of the language leading up to the Norman conquest of England and the subsequent transition to Early Middle English. [12]
This was later extended in Pre-Old English times to vowels before all nasals; hence Old English niman "take" but Old High German neman. Loss of /n/ before /x/, with nasalization and compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. The nasalization was eventually lost, but remained through the Ingvaeonic period.
Although the Old English diphthongs merged into monophthongs, Middle English began to develop a new set of diphthongs.Many of these came about through vocalization of the palatal approximant /j/ (usually from an earlier /ʝ/) or the labio-velar approximant /w/ (sometimes from an earlier voiced velar fricative [ɣ]), when they followed a vowel.
English 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.
This occurred with the word how in the Old English period, and with who, whom and whose in Middle English (the latter words having had an unrounded vowel in Old English). Reduction to /w/ , a development that has affected the speech of the great majority of English speakers, causing them to pronounce wh- the same as w- (sometimes called the ...