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Velar [k ɣ sk] can be found before unstressed back vowels in words such as dīcas, plegode, æscas, [81] whereas palatal [tʃ j ʃ] can be found before unstressed back vowels in words that originally contained an etymological *j or *i after the consonant, such as sēċan, wierġan, wȳsċan from Proto-Germanic *sōkijaną, *wargijaną ...
Back mutation (sometimes back umlaut, guttural umlaut, u-umlaut, or velar umlaut) is a change that took place in late prehistoric Old English and caused short e, i and sometimes a to break into a diphthong (eo, io, ea respectively, similar to breaking) when a back vowel (u, o, ō, a) occurred in the following syllable. [24]
This is a list of English words inherited and derived directly from the Old English stage of the language. This list also includes neologisms formed from Old English roots and/or particles in later forms of English, and words borrowed into other languages (e.g. French, Anglo-French, etc.) then borrowed back into English (e.g. bateau, chiffon, gourmet, nordic, etc.).
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of chain shifts that affected historical long vowels but left short vowels largely alone. It is one of the primary causes of the idiosyncrasies in English spelling. The shortening of ante-penultimate syllables in Middle English created many long–short pairs. The result can be seen in such words as,
Words with (ea) that were shortened (see above) avoided the merger, also some words like steak and great simply remained with an /eː/ (which later becomes /eɪ/ in most varieties) merging with words like name, so now death, great, and meat have three different vowels. Changes affect short vowels in many varieties before an /r/ at the end of a ...
At some point, short /u/ developed into a lax, near-close near-back rounded vowel, /ʊ/, as found in words like put. (Similarly, short /i/ has become /ɪ/.) According to Roger Lass, the laxing occurred in the 17th century, but other linguists have suggested that it may have taken place much earlier. [1] The short /o/ remaining in words like lot ...
The word guttural literally means 'of the throat' (from Latin guttur, meaning throat), and was first used by phoneticians to describe the Hebrew glottal (א) and (ה), uvular (ח), and pharyngeal (ע). [4] The term is commonly used non-technically by English speakers to refer to sounds that subjectively appear harsh or grating.
However, in some of the words with the /a ~ au/ alternation, especially short words in common use, the vowel instead developed into a long A. In words like change and angel, this development preceded the Great Vowel Shift, and so the resulting long A followed the normal development to modern /eɪ/.