3 ms·
> Sometime in the deep prehistory of the English language, the ‘g’ sound got pulled forward in the mouth to sound like ‘y’ whenever it was next to these front v
by gwd 1y ago
> Sometime in the deep prehistory of the English language, the ‘g’ sound got pulled forward in the mouth to sound like ‘y’ whenever it was next to these front vowels.
My understanding is that a modern Greek gamma (γ) is the same way: actually a voiced version of "loch". So before "back vowels", it sounds to modern English speakers like a hard 'g', but before "front vowels" it sounds to a modern English speaker like a 'y'.
- int_19h 1y agoWhat you described did take place as Old English evolved, except it happened not just before front vowels but also sometimes after. However at some point late in Old English the palatalized allophones "broke off" and became phonemes in their own right, and most Old English texts are already at that stage, so it really was pronounced like modern "y" at that point, usually. What they got instead is "y" and "j" as allophones, which is partly why modern English pronunciations of most Biblical names are so weird.