Phonetic processes in Old English (the system of consonants)
Treatment of fricatives. Hardening. Rhotacism. Voicing and Devoicing.
After the changes under Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law had PG had the following two sets of fricative consonants: voiceless [f, Ө, x, s] and voiced [v, ð, γ, z]. In WG and in Early OE the difference between two groups was supported by new features. PG voiced fricatives tended to be hardened to corresponding plosives while voiceless fricatives, being contrasted to them primarily as fricatives to plosives, developed new voiced allophones. The PG voiced [ð] (due to Verner’s Law) was always hardened to [d] in OE and other WG languages, e.g. Icel, gōðr andOE зōd. The two other fricatives, [v] and [γ] were hardened to [b] and [g] initially and after nasals, otherwise they remained fricatives. PG [z] underwent a phonetic modification through the stage of [з] into [r] and thus became a sonorant, which ultimately merged with the older IE [r]. This process is termed rhotacism. In the meantime or somewhat later the PG set of voiceless fricatives [f, Ө, x, s] and also those of the voiced fricaties which had not turned into plosives, that is, [v] and [γ], were subjected to a new process of voicing and devoicing. In Early OE they became or remained voiced intervocally and between vowels, sonorants and voiced consonants; they remained or became voiceless in other environments, namely, initially, finally and next to other voiceless consonants. In all WG languages, at an early stage of their independent history, most consonants were lengthened after a short vowel before [l]. This process is known as “geminantion” or “doubling” of consonants, e.g. fuljan > fyllan (NE fill). The change did not affect the sonorant [r], e.g OE werian (NE wear); nor did it operate if the consonant was preceded by a long vowel, e.g. OE dēman, mētan (NE deem, meet).
Velar consonants in Early Old English. Growth of New Phonemes
The velar consonants [k, g, x, γ] were palatalized before a front vowel, and sometimes also after a front vowel, unless followed by a back vowel. Thus in OE cild (NE child) the velar consonant [k] was softened to [k’] as it stood before the front vowel [i] – [kild] > [k’ild]; similarly [k] became [k’] in OE sprǽc (NE speech) after a front vowel but not in OE sprecan (NE speak).
Loss of consonants in some positions
Nasal sonorants were regularly lost before fricative consonants; in the process the preceding vowel was proably nasalized and lengthened, e.g. OHG fimf – OE fīf (NE five). It should be also mentioned the loss of consonants in unstressed final syllables. [j] was regularly dropped in suffixes after producing various changes in the root.
Old English consonant system
Old English dialects.
The language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons at the time of their migration to Britain was probably more or less uniform. Over time, however, Old English developed into four major dialects: Northumbrian, spoken north of the river Humber; Mercian, spoken in the midlands; Kentish, spoken in Kent (the southeastern part); and West Saxon, spoken in the southwest. All these dialects have direct descendants in modern England, and American regional dialects also have their roots in the dialects of Old English. Modern English spelling owes most to the Mercian dialect, since that was the dialect of London. Most OE literature is not in the Mercian dialect, however, but in the West Saxon, for from the time of King Alfred until the Conquest, Wessex dominated the rest of Anglo-Saxon England politically and culturally. Nearly all Old English poetry is in West Saxon, though it often contains spellings and vocabulary more typical of Mercian and Northumbrian – a fact that has led some scholars to speculate that much of the poetry was first composed in Mercian or Northumbrian and only later “translated” into West Saxon. Whatever the truth of the matter, West Saxon was the dominant language during the period in which most of our surviving literature was recorded.