![]() Yod-dropping is the elision of the /j/ from certain syllable-initial clusters of the type described above. ![]() The diphthongs /juː/ or /ɪʊ̯/ are most commonly indicated by the spellings eu, ew, uCV (where C is any consonant and V is any vowel), ue and ui, as in feud, few, mute, cue and suit, while the historical monophthong /uː/ is commonly indicated by the spellings oo and ou, as in moon and soup. A few dialects, notably in Wales, as well as in some parts of northern England, New England, and the American South, still retain a ( falling) /ɪu/ diphthong where standard English has /juː/ – these dialects therefore lack the clusters with /j/ and have not been subject to the reductions described here. This change from /ɪu/ to /juː/, which had occurred in London by the end of the 17th century, did not take place in all dialects. They also occurred in words ending in -ion and -ious, such as nation and precious. (For more information, see Phonological history of English high back vowels.) They were thus often found before the vowel /uː/, as in cube /kjuːb/ – which was in some cases modified to /ʊə/ or /ʊ/ before (historical) /r/, as in cure, or weakened to /ʊ/ or /ə/ as in argument. Many such clusters arose in dialects in which the falling diphthong /ɪu/ (the product of the merger of several Middle English vowel sequences) became the rising diphthong /juː/. Y-cluster reductions are reductions of clusters ending with the palatal approximant /j/, which is the sound of ⟨y⟩ in yes, and is sometimes referred to as "yod", from the Hebrew letter yod(h), which has the sound. is often reduced from to just (a voiceless palatal fricative). In other dialects of English, hew and yew remain distinct however, the cluster /hj/ of hew, human, etc. Aside from accents with general H-dropping, in the United States this reduction is mostly found in accents of Philadelphia and New York City it also occurs in Cork accents of Irish English. ![]() This is sometimes considered a type of glide cluster reduction, but it is much less widespread than wh-reduction, and is generally stigmatized where it is found. In some dialects of English the cluster /hj/ is reduced to /j/, leading to pronunciations like /juːdʒ/ for huge and /ˈjuːmən/ for human, and making hew a homophone of ewe and you. For example, Old English hlāf, hring and hnutu become loaf, ring and nut in Modern English. The Old English consonant clusters /hl/, /hr/ and /hn/ were reduced to /l/, /r/, and /n/ in Middle English. The distinction is maintained, however, in Scotland, most of Ireland, and some Southern American English. Reduction to /w/, a development that has affected the speech of the great majority of English speakers, causing them to pronounce ⟨wh-⟩ the same as ⟨w-⟩ (sometimes called the wine–whine merger or glide cluster reduction).This occurred with the word how in the Old English period, and with who, whom and whose in Middle English (the latter words having had an unrounded vowel in Old English). Reduction to /h/ before rounded vowels (due to /hw/ being perceived as a /h/ with the labialization characteristic of that environment).The cluster /hw/ (spelled ⟨wh⟩ since Middle English) has been subject to two kinds of reduction: Main article: Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩
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