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
Constructed languages
- Volapük (with other sources)
