The Origin of the English Language - Part IV

English Phonology

The Human Vocal Tract

© 2002 Emily J. Fajardo

• 1 Lips

• 2 Teeth

• 3 Alveolar Region

• 4 Tongue

• 5 Palate

• 6 Velum

• 7 Uvula

• 8 Pharynx

• 9 Nasal Cavity

• 10 Epiglottis

• 11 Esophagus

• 12 Glottis

• 13 Vocal Cords

• 14 Trachea

• 15 Larynx

Modern English Consonants

• consonants involve stoppage of flow of air in vocal tract;
• voiced: involving vibration of the vocal cords;
• voiceless: no vibration of the vocal cords;
• place of articulation:
• labial : involving the lips.
• dental: involving the teeth.
• alveolar: involving the area behind the teeth.
• palatal: involving the hard palate.
• velar: involving the velum or soft palate.
• manner of articulation:
• stops (plosives): involve the stoppage and sudden release of air.
• fricatives (spirants): involve the constricted flow of air producing a kind of hissing sound.
• affricates: a combination of stop + fricative.
• nasals: flow of air channeled through the nose, always voiced.
• lateral: flow of air channeled through the sides of the tongue, also voiced.
• retroflex: similar to the lateral but involving a backward curving of the tip of the tongue, also voiced.

semivowels (glides): similar to vowels in that the stoppage of the flow of air is very minimal.

Chart of consonant phonemes in English

Examples: [p]: pat, [b]: bat, [t]: time, [d]: dime, [k]: came, [g]: game, [tʃ]: chump, [dʒ]: jump, [f]: fat, [v]: vat, [θ]: thigh [ð]: thy, [s]: sap, [z]: zap, [š]: glacier,[ʃ]:mesher, [ž]: glazier, [ʒ]: measure, [h]: ham, [m]: man, [n]: nun, [ŋ]: sing, [l]: lamp, [r]: ramp, [w]: world, [y]: yore/you; the glottal stop and the flap are not phonemic but are frequently used allophones of [t] in words such as "satin," "rotten," mountain," "cater," "waiter," "later".

Modern English Vowels 

• vowels are sounds involving the unrestricted flow of air through the mouth;
• vowels sounds are always voiced;
• vowels differ depending on the degree of openness of the mouth and height of the tongue (the lower the tongue the more open the mouth) (high, mid, low);
• also important is the position in the mouth of the of the highest part of the tongue (front, central, back);
• diphthongs (ai, au, ɔi) (e.g. buy, bough, boy);
• unstressed vowels tend to be pronounced as the mid-central vowel  

Prosody (stress patterns)

• stress is the relative loudness with which different parts of a word are pronounced
• in English the tendency is to stress the initial syllable of a word
• the stress of a syllable can be classified as primary, secondary, or reduced/unstressed
• in English final syllables tend to be unstressed
• examples:
• in the word "brother" the first syllable has primary stress and the second syllable is unstressed: "bróth-er"
• in the word "bookcase" the first syllable receives primary stress and the second secondary stress: "bóok-càse"
• in the word "constellation" the first syllable receives secondary stress, the second syllable has reduced stress, the third syllable has primary stress, and the fourth syllable has also reduced stress: "còn-stel-lá-tion".

English Writing & Graphics

• the oldest sample of English writing may be in the form of certain carvings on the Bewcastle Cross (an 8th century stone monument in northern England) (the fact is, however, dubious because of the difficulty making out the writing and dating the cross)
• the Old English alphabet was primarily derived from the Roman, Latin alphabet but was also influenced by the Futhorc and Runic Alphabet - an alphabet used by the Germanic peoples from about the 3rd century AD (likely developed by the Goths and derived from the Etruscan and Roman alphabets). The word "rune" means "secret" (having to do with the limited literacy of the day and the use of runic inscriptions for magical purposes)
• originally runes were carved on stone or wood (of the beech-tree), hence our word "book" is derived from the Old English word boc ("beech-tree)

·  writing is mostly an attempt to reproduce the spoken language and is derived from it but, in some special situations, writing can affect pronunciation as in so-called "spelling pronunciations" (e.g. Arthur, Thames) (originally these words were pronounced with [t] instead of [θ] but because of the habit of Middle English scribes of spelling it with a "th" the pronunciation changed to [θ]

·  Special characters in Old and Middle English writing:

o    thorn: p (th), derived from the runic alphabet, example: þæt ("that")

o    eth: θ (voiced th), example: θeoden ("prince")

o    ash: æ (a+e, pronounced like the "a" in "mat"), the name "ash" is derived from the name of a letter in the runic alphabet but the runic character is different; example: ælf ("elf")

o    wen/wynn: p(w), example; pæpen ("weapon")

o    yogh: ɜ -- derived from the Old English graphic sign for "g" -- in Middle English it became a character associated with various pronounciations:

• ɜelden ([Yɛldɛn]"yield")
• cniɜt ([kniht]"knight")
• þurɜ ([θurh], "through")