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G-dropping – reduction of the final cluster [ŋɡ] to [n] in weak syllables, principally in the verb ending -ing, which has occurred in many English dialects, although not in the modern standard varieties. Reduction of /mb/ and /mn/ to /m/, in later Middle English, affecting words like lamb and column.
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 ...
The opposite of H-dropping, called H-insertion or H-adding, sometimes occurs as a hypercorrection in English accents that typically drop H. It is commonly noted in literature from late Victorian times to the early 20th century that some lower-class people consistently drop h in words that should have it, while adding h to words that should not ...
Such t-glottalization also occurs in many British regional accents, including Cockney, where it can also occur at the end of words, and where /p/ and /k/ are sometimes treated the same way. [25] For some RP-speakers, final voiceless stops, especially /k/, may become ejectives. [26] Among stops, both fortes and lenes:
This occurs in Estuary English and other dialects. [37] Yod-dropping: loss of /j/ in some consonant clusters. Though it occurs in some environments in many British English dialects, it is most extensive in American and (in younger speakers) Canadian English. Northern Cities Vowel Shift in Inland Northern American English:
This is a list of British English words that have different American English spellings, for example, colour (British English) and color (American English). Word pairs are listed with the British English version first, in italics, followed by the American English version: spelt, spelled; Derived words often, but not always, follow their root.
Inflectional evidence suggests that occurred first when the following word began with a vowel. A century or so later, unstressed /ə/ also dropped in the plural genitive ending -es (spelled -s in Modern English) and the past ending -ed. The changes steadily effaced most inflectional endings: OE mētan → ME meete(n) → LME /meːt/ → NE meet ...
Old English did possess a voiced velar fricative sound [ɣ], which developed from Proto-Germanic *ɡ, but [ɣ] is usually analyzed as a separate phoneme from /x/: the sounds were normally distinguished in spelling, with [ɣ] written as g and /x/ as h , although some unetymological interchange of these spellings occurs, especially in word-final ...