Modern English

English is a Germanic language, serving basically as the lingua franca over much of the world; the most notable English-speaking countries are the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Phonology

Consonants

p b	t d	k ɡ
m	n	ŋ
	ʧ ʤ
f v	θ ð s z ʃ ʒ	(x)	h
	l r j w

The consonants of English tend to be more stable cross-dialectally than the vowels.

The phonemic status of [ŋ] is sometimes disputed, instead being replaced by a rule /nɡ → ŋ/ at the end of a morpheme. There remain, however, a few words where this may not apply, such as "hangar", though this may be due to metanalysis as hang + -ar.

The voiceless stops are aspirated. In some dialects aspiration is more salient than voicing for distinguishing stops.

The general American value of /r/ is [ɻ].

Important allophones

• [ɾ] for /d/ and /t/ between vowels in American English and some Australian dialects.
• [ʔ] for /d/ /t/, especially finally, but intervocalically in some places (Cockney and other London dialects).
• [ç] for /h/ before /j/.
• [ʍ] for /hw/ <wh> in some dialects. (In other dialects it either remains [hw] is not distinguished from /w/, even in dialects that otherwise retain /h/.)
• unaspirated voiceless consonants after /s/.
• [ʋ̴] is used for /r/ by some speakers.

Notable features of English

• Most verbs cannot normally participate in processes such as negation; for this auxiliary verbs are used. E.g.: to negate "I ate the cat.":

  *I ate not the cat. (possible, but archaic)

  I didn't eat the cat. (auxiliary "do" takes tense and negation marking)

Languages based on English

Creoles and natural descendants

• Tok Pisin

Constructed languages

• Volapük (with other sources)

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