Consonants /v/

The present-tense verb-form have is normally pronounced /hæ ~ hε ~ hə ~ ə/ , i.e. without a final /v/, unless the next word begins with a vowel: Have you done it? /hε jə dΛn ət/. This has the consequence that, because of smoothing, some forms involving to have and to be are homophonous: we’re coming /wε:kΛmən/, we’ve done it /wε: dΛn ət/.

In many of the local varieties spoken in the southeast of England in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, prevocalic /v/ in items like village was replaced by /w/. Most reports focus on word-initial /w/ in items such as village, victuals, vegetables, vermin. It would seem than that [v] occurred only in non-prevocalic position, i.e. in items such as love, with the consequence that [w] and [v] were in complementary distribution and /w/ and /v/ were no longer distinct. Ellis (1889) describes the southeast of 19^th century England as the “land of wee” and Wright (1905: 227) says that “initial and medial v has become w in mid-Buckinghamshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, east Sussex”. Wakelin (1981: 95–96) writes that the SED materials show that: “In parts of southern England, notably East Anglia and the south-east, initial and medial [v] may appear as [w], cf. V.7.19 vinegar, IV.9.4 viper (under adder), V.8.2 victuals (under food). […] The use of [w] for [v] was a well-known Cockney feature up to the last century.”

Wakelin (1984: 79) also says that “Old East Anglian and south-eastern dialect is noted for its pronunciation of initial /v/ as /w/ in, e.g., vinegar, viper; a very old feature, which was preserved in Cockney up to the last century”. The SED materials show spontaneous responses to VIII.3.2 with very with initial /w/ in Grimston, North Elmham, Ludham, Reedham, and Pulham St Mary, Norfolk. Norfolk is one of the areas in which this merger lasted longest. The merger is ‘remembered’ by the local community decades after its actual disappearance: most local people in the area over a certain age ‘know’ that village used to be pronounced willage and that very used to be pronounced werra, but discussions with older Norfolk people suggest that it was in widespread normal unselfconscious use only until the 1920s. We can assume that it died out in the southern part of the East Anglian area even earlier. The fact that modern dialect writers still use the feature is therefore highly noteworthy. For example, Michael Brindred in his local dialect column in the Norwich-based Eastern Daily Press of August 26^th, 1998 writes anniversary <anniwarsary>.