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Fronting and Unrounding

This website uses symbols to transcribe phonemes (sounds). For an explanation of what these symbols represent, click here: vowels, consonants. The following special symbols are used:
ə Λ ā ē ī ō ū ű œ θ δ š ž č ĵ ŋ
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Note: an apostrophe ' is placed before the accented vowel.

Fronting and unrounding is a set of sound changes which have made quite large changes in the pronunciation of English in the last century or so. This occurs in different forms in throughout the British Isles and in Australia.

The essence of these sound changes is that back rounded vocoid vowels tend to become more front and to loose their rounding. At its most extreme, it leads to these changes:

/u/ is pronounced [I], like /i/
/ō/ is pronounced [eI], like /ē/
/au/ is pronounced [eI], like /ē/
/ū/ is pronounced [Ij], like /ī/
/ű/ and /jū/ are pronounced [jIj], like /jī/

Details of changes in individual vowels

This section gives a detailed technical description of how the vowels above are changing in many dialects.

The phoneme /u/

Without fronting and unrounding, /u/ is a high-mid-high back rounded vocoid [U]. With fronting and unrounding, various vowels may be produced with different degrees of frontness and rounding.

In the south of England, unrounding tends to occur first, producing an unrounded back vowel; fronting in much less common. The extreme of this process is to produce a high-mid-high back unrounded vocoid [I], resembling /i/, so that look /luk/ [lUk] comes to sound like lick /lik/ [lIk]. Few speakers produce this sound all the time, but many produce it occasionally.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland, fronting tends to occur while still rounded, producing high-mid-high front vocoids like [Y]: so [lYk] is not an uncommon pronunciation for look /luk/.

The phoneme /ō/

/ō/ was probably once pronounced as a long pure vowel [o:], which can still be heard in some accents of Scotland, North England, Wales and Ireland. But in most dialects it has become a diphthong. Probably the earliest diphthong to form was [oU]. Subsequently the first element has tended to unround to produce diphthongs like [ΛU] and [əU].

More rarely, but more and more these days in the South of England, the second element of the diphthong fronts and unrounds to form a palatal element like [I] or [j], resulting in diphthongs including [ΛI], [Λj], [əI], [əj]. In the extreme case, the first element also completely fronts to [ε] or [e], generating diphthongs like [εI] or [eI], which closely resemble the standard pronunciation of /ē/: so oat /ōt/ [oUt] comes to sound like eight or ate /ēt/ [εIt].

There are speakers, mainly in South England, who routinely produce this pronunciation: the same people often pronounce final /t/ as a glottal stop, which makes it very difficult to distinguish between the numerals oh ('zero') /ō/ [εI] and eight /ēt/ [εI?].

The phoneme /au/

It seems that the second element in /au/ fronted and unrounded to a palatal position some time ago, changing [aU] to [aI], making now /nau/ sound like nigh /nai/. Pronunciations like this can be heard in West-Central England, particularly Shropshire and the West Midlands. It is also part of a very refined upper-class pronunciation which has mostly died out now, except in a few old speakers from very upper-class backgrounds. It can also be heard in Northern Ireland.

In West-Central England, the first element of the diphthong also tends to rise, generating [eI].

The phoneme /ū/

/ū/ was probably once pronounced as a long pure vowel [u:]. In some dialects of Scotland and Northern Ireland it has remained rounded but has fronted, producing vowels like [y:] and [y], which sound like /ű/. This is particularly true in the word you /jū/: it is common to hear this pronounced [jy] in Scotland. In Northern Ireland /ū/ may become a diphthong with a rounded first and an unrounded second element, such as [yj] (first element fronted) or [Uj] (first element not fronted).

In many dialects /ū/ has diphthongised to something like [Uw]. In North-West-Central England, particularly Cheshire and Shropshire, the first element has fronted to [Y] or unrounded [I], producing diphthongs like [Yw], [Iw], which sound like /ű/. In Cheshire it is very common to hear school /skūl/ pronounced [skIwl], which sounds like /skűl/. This pronunciation is spreading to the South of England as well.

In the South of England, /ū/ has generally suffered less fronting and unrounding than /ō/. The diphthongised pronunciation [Uw] is very common. An unrounding of the second element is sometimes heard, giving [Uj], while the Cheshire pronunciation [Iw] is becoming more prevalent.

The logical outcome of this sequence of fronting and unrounding would be vowels like [Ij], [ij], [i:], [i]. These pronunciations are used, but rarely.

The phoneme /ű/ and the combination /jū/

It is impossible to treat these separately. Undoubtedly, most instances of /jū/ in English result from an earlier /ű/, which was probably pronounced as a pure high front rounded vocoid [y:] or [y]. In some accents of Scotland, [y] can still be heard: new /ű/ may be pronounced [ny].

The pronunciation of /ű/ in England probably changed in two stages: [y:] changed to a falling diphthing [Yw] or [Iw], and then this shifted to a rising diphthong something like [ju], which was interpreted as two phonemes, /j/ + /ū/. The second phoneme was pronounced as /ū/, with the changes described above.

In some dialects every instance of /ű/ became /jū/, while in others this happened in only some cases, leaving some words with the distinct phoneme /ű/. In Engalnd, those who still keep /ű/ as a distinct phoneme tend to pronounce it as a diphthong [Yw] or [Iw]. Some speakers have converted /ū/ to the same pronunciation, so that /ū/ and /ű/ have merged, but /jū/ (from former /jū/) has become [Yw] or [Iw]. This leaves such speakers with a contrast between (/ū/ = /ű/) [Yw], [Iw] and (/jū/ = /jű/) [jYw], [jIw].

In Northern Ireland, /ū/ can become [yj], so /ű/ becomes /jū/ becomes [jyj]: thus we may hear new /njū/ [njyj].

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