"A New English Grammar, Logical and Historical"の"h"に関する記述まとめ

内容的には「hの話」シリーズなのですが、余りに資料的なので番外編ということで。

先日、英語の"gh"について扱ったときに、"strong h"という表記が参考文献にありました。

これについて、著者の田中は同書の中で「Sweetの"strong h"」と書いており、
つまりSweetの用法と同じように"strong h"やそれと対をなす"weak h"を用いているというわけです。

Sweetとは、イギリスの音声学者Henry Sweet(1845-1912)のことであり、特に古英語学の基礎を築いたことで有名です。
今回はSweetの著作のひとつ、"A New English Grammar, Logical and Historical"の中から、
"h"に関する記述を引用し、まとめてみたいと思います。

著作は以下のリンク先から読むことができます。本当に、昔の文献がフリーで読める凄い時代です。
https://archive.org/details/newenglishgramma01swee

732.
Initial h had the same sound as in E. hw, as in hwīt ‘white,’=(wh)
So also hl, hr, hn represented the voiceless sounds of (l, r, n) respectively,
as in hlūd ‘loud,’ hring ‘ring,’ hnutu ‘nut.’
In hw etc. the h and the w were originally pronounced separately.
Non-initial h—‘strong h’—had the sound of (x) in Scotch loch,
as in þurh ‘through’;
in some words it had the sound of (ç) in German ich,
especially after a front vowel, as in ġesihþ ‘sight.’
(Sweet, p242, 改行は引用者任意)
809.
OE hr-, hl-, hn- became voiced in ME, as in ring, lūd, nŏte;
hw- was kept, being written wh, as in what.
The change of hr to h, etc. was not a phonetic weakening,
but was a process of levelling*1, the few words beginning with hr, etc. being absorbed,
as it were, into the much larger group of words beginning with the voiced sounds.
hw was preserved because of its occurrence in some very frequent words, such as what, when.
(Sweet, p262, 改行は引用者任意)

内容に入る前に音声の表記方法について：
Sweetがこの著作を著した当時、まだ音声学は発展途上であったために、今のIPAのような統一的な表記方法はありませんでした。
（最初のIPAが制定されたときが、まさにSweetが現役だった時代です。）
この本の中では、"sound of (#)"という表記は、IPAを用いた時の/#/に対応する表記になります。
勿論、同じ音声に対して異なる記号を充てている場合もあるため、そのまま"sound of (#)"=/#/とならないことがありますが、
その場合は引用後に補足いたします。
今回の場合は、そのまま/#/で置き換えられます。

sound of (x) = /x/
sound of (ç) = /ç/

さて、上記の引用をまとめますと、

古英語
- 語頭の"h"は現代英語の"h"と同じ/h/の発音であった。
  - 特に、"hw"や"hl"、"hr"や"hn"のように、子音が続くような単語もあった。
  - 発音は、それぞれの文字が担う子音がそのまま連続して発音された。
- 非語頭の"h"は、/x/（但し、前舌母音の後では/ç/）の音で発音された（これを"strong h"と呼ぶ）。
中英語
- 語頭の"h"の内、"hw"を除く、後に子音が続く"h"は発音されなくなり、綴りからも姿を消す。
- これは、語頭の"h"が弱化したというよりも、数の少ない「"h"あり+子音」を語頭に持つ単語が、数の多い「"h"なし+子音」を語頭に持つ単語のグループに吸収されたと言った方が良い。
- 一方、"hw"は"wh"という綴りに変わって（但し発音は/hw/のまま）生き続けた。
- "hw"を語頭に持つ単語は比較的多く、使用頻度も高いものが多かったのが原因である。

761.
In OE h between vowels or between vowel-like consonants and vowels was dropped,
often with lengthening of the preceding vowel, as in furh ‘furrow,’
dat. plur. fūrum, Wealh ‘foreigner,’ ‘Welshman,’
plur. Wealas, Wēalas, Wielisċ ‘Welsh.’
When two vowels came together in this way, they were often made into a diphthong,
as in ġesēon ‘see’ from *ġeseohan [compare ġeseah ‘saw’].
(Sweet, p249, 改行は引用者任意)

古英語の時代で既に、

母音と母音に挟まれた"h"
母音的な子音と母音に挟まれた"h"

は脱落する傾向があったようです。
この「母音的な子音（vowel-like consonants）」というのが
どこまでの子音を含んでいるのか不明ですが、
少なくとも/j/は含んでいるのではと思います。
そして、時にこの"h"の脱落によって欠損した音を補うように、
直前の母音が長音化することがあってようです。
"h"が長母音の符号として使われるのは、
こうした経緯が由来なのでしょう。

英語の"ah"や"oh"
ドイツ語の"sehen"や"fahren"
日本語のローマ字表記での"oh"

762.
Open g, ġ became h before a breath consonant, as in byht ‘bending’ [būgan ‘bend’].
763.
Final open g was also unvoiced in Late West-Saxon, as in troh ‘trough,’
ġenōh ‘enough,’ burh=earlier trog, ġenōg, burg.
(Sweet, p249, 改行は引用者任意)

781.
After much fluctuation OE strong h was written gh, as in right, doghter.
(Sweet, p254, 改行は引用者任意, ※‘doghter’は‘daughter’のME期の綴り.)

808.
In old French h was silent in most words of Latin origin
—being often dropped in writing as well as pronunciation—
but was always pronounced in certain words—mostly of German origin—
which, of course, kept their h when imported into ME both in spelling and pronunciation,
the silent French h being sometimes written, sometimes not, but never pronounced.
ME had silent French h in such words as onūr, honour, hour, horrible.
(Sweet, pp261-262, 改行は引用者任意)

813.
（引用者註：前項812.で述べた、OEのopen gが/g/→/ʒw/と変化したのを受けて）
Strong h was rounded into (xw) in the same way,
as shown by its influence on preceding vowels (806).
As final h in ME often corresponded to medial w
in such pairs as inōh sing., inōwe plur.=Late OE ġenōh, ġenōge,
OE final h was changed into w when an e was added
—as was frequently the case (795):
thus ME furwe ‘furrow’ holwe ‘hollow’=OE furh, holh.
When final e was dropped at the end of the ME period, a resulting final w was changed to u: folu, holu.
(Sweet, pp262-263, 改行は引用者任意)

815.
Final OE front h was voiced in ME when a vowel was added;
thus hīh ‘high’ has pl. hīʒe, hīe (802),
from which a new uninflected form hī was formed.
(Sweet, p263, 改行は引用者任意)

864.
Initial (h), which was preserved through First and Second MnE,
began to be dropped at the end of the last century,
but has now been restored in Standard E. by the combined influence
of the spelling and of the speakers of Scotch and Irish E.,
where it has always been preserved.
It is also preserved in American E., while it has been almost completely lost
in the dialects of England—including Cockney E.—as also in vulgar Australian.
865.
But (h) is always dropped in weak syllables when not at the beginning of the sentence,
as in (-hij sed -ij wəz redi) he said he was ready,
whence the distinction between the emphatic (-him) and the unemphatic (-im).
The dropping of h in weak syllables is very old.
Even in OE we find such spellings as eora, Ēadelm
=heora ‘their,’ Ēadelm (a man's name).
866.
As we have seen, strong h appears in ME in the front of (ç) and (xw).
In First MnE the former was weakened to a mere breath-glide, and then dropped,
the preceding vowel being lengthened, so that ME night (niçt)
passed through (niht) into (niit), whence by the regular change (nəit).
But the older (niht) was still kept up by some speakers,
and the co-existence of (nəit) and (niht) gave rise to the blending (nəiht) or (nəiçt),
which, although artificial, seems to have been not uncommon in speech.
The gh in high, nigh, weigh, etc.=ME hīgh, hī was generally silent.
The back -gh was kept in such words as laugh, thought, enough
(lauxw, þouxwt, þoxwt, inuxw),
and in many words the lip element was exaggerated in Second MnE till it became (f)
—(læf, lææf, þoft, þoot, inɐf)—
which in draft by the side of draught—both from ME draght—
has been adopted in the spelling.
(Sweet, pp280-281, 改行は引用者任意)

*1:-ll-となるのはイギリス綴り