Pronunciation of English ⟨a⟩

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History and description of

English pronunciation

Historical stages

 Old English
 Middle English

General development

 Overview
 In Old English
 In Scots

Development of vowels

 Overview
 Great Vowel Shift
 Close front
 A
 Open back
 Close back
 Diphthongs
 Pre-L
 Pre-R

Development of consonants

 Single consonants
 Clusters

Variable features

 Rhoticity
 Flapping
 L-vocalization
 T-glottalization
  Cot–caught merger
 H-dropping
 Drawl
 TH
 R
 WH

Related topics

 History of English
 Spelling

 v
 t
 e

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There are a variety of pronunciations in modern English and in historical forms of the language for
words spelled with the letter ⟨a⟩. Most of these go back to the low vowel (the "short A") of
earlier Middle English, which later developed both long and short forms. The sound of the long vowel
was altered in the Great Vowel Shift, but later a new long A (or "broad A") developed which was not
subject to the shift. These processes have produced the three main pronunciations of ⟨a⟩ in present-
day English: those found in the words trap, face and father. Separate developments have produced
additional pronunciations in words like square, wash, talk and comma.

Contents

 1Overview

 2Old and Middle English

 3Further development of Middle English /aː/

 4Changes in realization of /a/

 5Development of the new long A

 o 5.1Before /r/

o 5.2Before fricatives

o 5.3Before nasals

 6TRAP–BATH split

 7Bad–lad split

 8/æ/ raising

 9In foreign borrowings

 10Other pronunciations

 11See also

 12Notes

 13References

 14External links

Overview[edit]
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Late Middle English had two phonemes /a/ and /aː/, differing only in length. The /a/ ("short A") was

found in words such as cat [kat] and trap [trap], and also before /r/ in words such as start [start].
The /aː/ ("long A") was found in words such as face [faːs], and before /r/ in words such
as scare [skaːr]. This long A was generally a result of Middle English open syllable lengthening. For
a summary of the various developments in Old and Middle English that led to these vowels,
see English historical vowel correspondences.
As a result of the Great Vowel Shift, the long [aː] of face was raised, initially to [æː] and later to [ɛː].
After 1700 it was raised even further, and then diphthongized, leading to the modern standard
pronunciation /eɪ/. Additionally, the short [a] of trap was fronted to [æ]; this change became accepted
in standard speech during the 17th century. Today there is much regional variation in the realization
of this vowel; in RP there has been a recent trend for it to be lowered again to a fully open [a].
These trends, allowed to operate unrestrictedly, would have left standard English without any vowels
in the [a] or [aː] area by the late 17th century. However, this putative gap was filled by the following
special developments:

 In two environments, Middle English [a] developed to [aː] rather than [æ]

 o Before non-prevocalic /r/ (e.g. in start, star; but not in carry), [a] developed to [aː] in
all words
o Before some fricatives, broadening happened inconsistently and sporadically
 Words that had Middle English [au] had a regular development to [ɒː] (for example, paw).
However, before a nasal, such words sometimes instead developed to [aː] (e.g. palm).
The [aː] of the late 17th century has generally backed to [ɑː] in several varieties of contemporary
English, for example in Received Pronunciation.
The following table shows some developments of Middle English /a/ in Received Pronunciation. The
word gate, which derived from Middle English /aː/, has also been included for comparison.

gat cas car ca gla

e t t t d

Middle
English