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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Linguistics Studies

Phonemes

Hello, I am hoping someone can help me out with a question I have to answer. I have been asked to "Exemplify the way in which the appearance of a new phoneme has affected the English writing system". Although I understand what a phoneme is, I cannot think of a way to answer this question. Any ideas?
  

Top answer

Essentially what new sounds (think of the development of modern English) have effected the way we write the language? This is an extremely tough question. I can only think of doh.

— Samuraifingers

  • Essentially what new sounds (think of the development of modern English) have effected the way we write the language?
  • This is an extremely tough question.
  • I can only think of doh.
  • (A new entry into the language from "The Simpson's") It's Homer's favorite explitive.
  • Technically dough is spelt with a "ug".
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4 Answers
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Essentially what new sounds (think of the development of modern English) have effected the way we write the language?

This is an extremely tough question.
I can only think of doh. (A new entry into the language from "The Simpson's")
It's Homer's favorite explitive. Technically dough is spelt with a "ug".
However to represent the way in which Homer says it - it's written as
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The letter <z> was rare in Old English and became more common in Middle English when the language developed the /z/ phoneme.
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Wasn't there something similar going on with <v> and <f>?

CJ
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Sort of; /v/ and /f/ became separate phonemes around the same time /z/ and /s/ did (and /?/ and /ð/) - in the Middle English period. But <v> didn't become a separate letter until the 1600s. Before then, <v> and <u> were the same letter - <v> was used in initial position, and <u> was used elsewhere. So while /v/ became a separate phoneme in Middle English, it wasn't r
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