Early Modern English

===Consonants===
{| class="wikitable"
|+Early Modern English consonants
!
![[Labiodental consonant|Labial]]
![[Dental consonant|Dental]]
![[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
![[Postalveolar consonant|Postalveolar]]
![[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
![[Velar consonant|Velar]]
![[Glottal consonant|Glottal]]
|-
![[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]
|{{IPA|m}}
|
|{{IPA|n}}
|
|
|'''{{IPA|ŋ}}'''
|
|-
![[Stop consonant|Stop]]
|{{IPA|p}} • {{IPA|b}}
|
|{{IPA|t}} • {{IPA|d}}
|{{IPA|tʃ}} • {{IPA|dʒ}}
|
|{{IPA|k}} • {{IPA|g}}
|
|-
![[Fricative consonant|Fricative]]
|{{IPA|f}} • {{IPA|v}}
|{{IPA|θ}} • {{IPA|ð}}
|{{IPA|s}} • {{IPA|z}}
|{{IPA|ʃ}} • '''{{IPA|ʒ}}'''
|('''{{IPA|ç}}''')
|''{{IPA|x}}''
|{{IPA|h}}
|-
![[Approximant]]
|
|
|{{IPA|r}}
|
|{{IPA|j}}
|ʍ • {{IPA|w}}
|
|-
![[Lateral approximant|Lateral]]
|
|
|{{IPA|l}}
|
|
|
|
|}
Most consonant sounds of Early Modern English have survived into present-day English; however, there are still a few notable differences in pronunciation:
*Today's "silent" consonants found in the [[Phonological history of English consonant clusters|consonant clusters]] of such words as ''knot, gnat, sword'' were still fully pronounced up until the mid-to-late 16th century and thus possibly by Shakespeare, though they were [[Phonological history of English consonant clusters|fully reduced]] by the early 17th century.<ref name="OP"/>
*The digraph {{angbr IPA|[[Gh (digraph)|gh]]}}, in words like ''night'', ''thought'' and ''daughter'', originally pronounced {{IPAblink|x}} in much older English, was probably reduced to nothing (as it is today) or at least heavily reduced in sound to something like {{IPA|[ht]}}, {{IPAblink|ç}}, {{IPAblink|h}}, or {{IPAblink|f}}. It seems likely that much variation existed for many of these words. Upon its disappearance, it lengthened the previous vowel.{{cn|date=March 2024}}
*The now-silent ''l'' of ''would'' and ''should'' may have persisted in being pronounced as late as 1700 in Britain and perhaps several decades longer in the [[British American colonies]].<ref>The American Language 2nd ed. p. 71</ref> The ''l'' in ''could'', however, first appearing in the early 16th century, was presumably never pronounced.
*The modern phoneme {{IPA|/ʒ/}} was not documented as occurring until the second half of the 17th century. Likely, that phoneme in a word like ''vision'' was pronounced as {{IPA|/zj/}} and in ''measure'' as {{IPA|/z/}}.
*Most words with the spelling {{angbr|wh}}, such as ''what'', ''where'' and ''whale'', were still pronounced {{IPAblink|ʍ|audio=y}}, rather than {{IPAblink|w|audio=y}}. That means, for example, that ''wine'' and ''whine'' were [[Wine–whine merger|still pronounced differently]], unlike in most varieties of English today.<ref name="Hark"/>
*Early Modern English was [[rhoticity in English|rhotic]]. In other words, the ''r'' was always pronounced,<ref name="Hark">{{cite web|last=Crystal|first=David|title=David Crystal – Home |url=http://www.davidcrystal.com/?fileid=-4254|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020080412/http://www.davidcrystal.com/?fileid=-4254|archive-date=20 October 2017|quote="Hark, hark, what shout is that?" Around the Globe 31. [based on article written for the Troilus programme, Shakespeare's Globe, August 2005: 'Saying it like it was'}}</ref> but the precise nature of the typical rhotic consonant remains unclear. {{citation needed|date=December 2014}} It was, however, certainly one of the following:
**The "R" of most varieties of English today: {{IPAblink|ɹ̠|audio=y}} or a further forward sound {{IPAblink|ɹ|audio=y}}
**The "trilled or rolled R": {{IPAblink|r|audio=y}}, perhaps with one contact {{IPAblink|ɾ|audio=y}}, as in modern [[Scouse]] and Scottish English
**The "retroflex R": {{IPAblink|ɻ|audio=y}}. 
*In Early Modern English, the precise nature of the light and dark [[allophone|variants]] of the ''l'' consonant, respectively {{IPAblink|l|audio=y}} and {{IPAblink|ɫ|audio=y}}, remains unclear.
*Word-final {{angbr|ng}}, as in ''sing'', was still pronounced {{IPA|[ŋɡ]}} until the late 16th century, when it began to [[ng-coalescence|coalesce]] into the usual modern pronunciation, {{IPAblink|ŋ}}. The original pronunciation {{IPA|[ŋɡ]}} is preserved in parts of England, in dialects such as [[Brummie]], [[Manchester dialect|Mancunian]] and Scouse.
*[[H-dropping]] at the start of words was common, as it still is in informal English throughout most of England.<ref name="Hark"/> In loanwords taken from [[Latin]], Greek, or any [[Romance language]], a written ''h'' was usually mute well into modern English times, e.g. in ''heritage'', ''history'', ''hermit'', ''hostage'', and still today in ''heir'', ''honor'', ''hour'' etc.
*With words originating from or passed through ancient Greek, ''th'' was commonly pronounced as ''t'', e.g. ''theme'', ''theater'', ''cathedral'', ''anthem''; this is still retained in some proper names as ''Thomas'' and a few common nouns like ''thyme''.{{cn|date=March 2024}}