Consonantal Sounds — Changes from the Old and Middle English Periods Down to the Present Day

§ 254. The following account of the B.Gn. treatment of the ME. consonantal system is modelled on Chap. VIII of Professor Wyld's History of Modern Colloquial English. Many features usually noticed in dialect monographs have here been omitted; but most of the more important sound changes have been included. I have also attempted to show, by means of the occasional spellings from local documents and early place-name forms, the antiquity of the pronunciations current in our dialect to-day.