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

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiod.		Inter-dental		Alveolar		Post-alv.		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m						n						ŋ
Plosive	p	b					t	d					k	g	ʔ
Fricative			f	v	θ	ð	s	z	ʃ	ʒ		ç	(x)		h
Affricate							ʦ	ʣ	ʧ	(ʤ)
Approximants & glides	ʍ	w						ɹ				j
Trill								r
Flap								ɾ
Lateral Approximant								l/ɫ

• The glottal stop /ʔ/ is used in some British and Scottish accents instead of an unstressed intervocalic alveolar stop. The same sound becomes an alveolar flap /ɾ/ in many American and some Australian dialects.

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. Most of the time /ŋ/ occurs after a velar stop, but in the case of /ŋg/ may times the /g/ is dropped and the /ŋ/ remains. In standard English words such as sing, sin, and sink are minimal pairs as such /sɪŋ/, /sɪn/, and /sɪŋk/. There are exceptions such as singer /sɪŋəɹ/ vs. finger /fɪŋgəɹ/.

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

The general American value of /r/ is the approximate /ɹ/ which also involves a bit of lip rounding, leading to some children changing /ɹ/ to /w/ in early stages of development.

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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