Sound change is the evolution of sounds in a language, with each type of change having its own name. Different words can have multiple changes in sound over time, leading to drastic differences between ancient and modern versions of a language. Sound changes can involve adding or subtracting sounds, combining sounds, strengthening or weakening them, changing them, or nasalizing them. The spelling system of a language can suffer from sound changes, as seen in the Great English Vowel Shift. Sound changes are ongoing and can occur as dialects and languages come into contact with each other.
Sound change is literally a change in a sound in a language. It doesn’t necessarily happen in every dialect of the language, nor does it affect the meaning or usage of the word. The term “sound change” applies to the historical evolution of the sounds of a language and is an umbrella term covering all types of sound changes. Each type of change has its own name, and the term “sound change” is too broad to provide enough detail to identify what exactly happened.
Every language experiences sound change, but not all types of sound change occur in all languages. Different words can have multiple changes in sound over time, modifying successive versions of a language so drastically that the ancient and modern versions are no longer mutually intelligible. In some cases, the two may sound like completely different languages.
Many of the modifications involve a change in one or more characteristics of the sound. Each sound has different qualities that describe what contributes to the sound and what differentiates it from other sounds. The articulators, or parts of the mouth and throat used to produce sound; the movement of the vocal cords; and the movement of air through the mouth or nose are three types of these characteristics.
For example, the sound “f” is a voiceless labiodental fricative. This means that sound is produced with a lip and upper teeth, the vocal folds are spread apart and make voiceless sound, and air is able to escape from the mouth with some friction. Changing any of these characteristics transforms the “f” into another sound. For example, changing only the position of the vocal folds, from open to vibrating, changes the “f” to “v”.
Sound change can involve adding or subtracting sounds, combining sounds, strengthening or weakening them, changing them or nasalizing them. It’s not unusual to see changes that mirror each other. Assimilation, for example, occurs when a sound changes to match an adjacent sound in some aspect, such as an “n” becoming voiced, or an “m”, before a voiced consonant such as “b”.
A language’s writing system can suffer quite badly from a change in sound because the spelling system doesn’t necessarily change along with the sound. Much of English spelling, especially vowels, mismatches the sounds because the vowel system has undergone tremendous changes over time. A gigantic shift, known as the Great English Vowel Shift, occurred between the 15th and 17th centuries, changing vowels like “ee” to “sheep.” That “ee” used to be a long “eh,” but the shift shifted the articulatory position in the mouth, so it now has the familiar “ee” sound.
Sounds do not reach an end point and remain so. It might appear that they do so because a change in sound is very gradual, but any sound can keep changing. As more dialects and languages come into contact with each other, as people begin to pronounce sounds in slightly different places in their mouths, and as children pick up and adopt these modifications, society will see more sound changes occur.
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