This volume represents one of seven volumes in the series Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language—Advanced. The author, Donka Minkova, is a distinguished and highly innovative scholar. She has marshaled her extensive teaching and research experience into a detailed and engaging new textbook for students and instructors of advanced English historical linguistics. The well-organized volume is cleverly conceived to be of tremendous value to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and indeed to research scholars interested in a theoretically informed and up-to-date account of the history of English phonology. The volume is greatly enhanced by extensive online materials offering in-depth discussion of many issues as well as discussion questions, exercises, and the like. A salient feature throughout is the lucid presentation of ongoing controversies in historical English phonology. Minkova invites the reader to join these debates, provides her opinion when appropriate, and notes where further research is needed. Extensive and current bibliographical references make this book an indispensable resource for fledgling and advanced research scholars alike.

The challenge of presenting such a large topic concisely and coherently is evident from the outset. Minkova is meticulous in noting precisely what lies within and outside the scope of her volume. The book is organized into 10 chapters followed by an extensive bibliography, a word index, a name index, and a subject index. The first three chapters set the stage by providing historical context, a basic introduction to the sounds of English, and the basics of the development from Indo-European to Germanic to Old English (OE).

Chapters 4–8 represent the core of the work: First, the development of the English consonants from OE through Present-Day English (PDE) is presented (chapters 4–5), and then the same is done for the vowels (chapters 6–8). Chapter 9 provides an exceptionally useful account of the development of English prosody. Finally, chapter 10 provides an important overview of Early English verse forms.

Chapter 1, Periods in the History of English, provides the main discussion of what is often referred to as the “external” history of English. Minkova argues that periods in the history of English become longer and longer and less familiar as one projects backwards in time (PDE spans roughly two centuries, Middle English (ME) four centuries, OE six centuries). As a result, a more detailed description of the historical context of the OE and ME periods gives way to a more abbreviated discussion of the Early Modern English (EModE) and PDE periods.

This strategy works well, though there is at least one instance where an extra sentence or two might have provided greater clarity. On page 16, Minkova notes in a single key sentence:

While additional elaboration of this statement is found in the online materials, an important point does not come through: In the EModE period, this urbanization was almost exclusively the story of the rapid expansion of London. In 1500, England had only five cities with a population of 10,000 or more, and only London, with roughly 40,000 inhabitants, had a population that significantly exceeded 10,000. Between 1500 and 1600, London's population quintupled, from 40,000 to 200,000. Yet no other city showed any significant growth, and only four cities—Bristol, Exeter, Newcastle, and Norwich—had a population of 10,000–12,000 (De Vries Reference Vries1984:270).

This situation stands in stark contrast to, for example, the Low Countries, which in 1500 boast 23 cities of 10,000–40,000 in population in an area less than half the size of England (De Vries Reference Vries1984:271–272). For a period of three centuries and more, therefore, London was a giant among dwarves as an urban center. Given the fact that its growth was entirely attributable to immigration, often from great distances, it occupied a position of central importance in the development of English. The chapter concludes with a useful discussion of the reconstruction of early pronunciation.

In the subsequent chapter, The Sounds of English, Minkova provides a lucid introduction to English phonetics, syllable structure, syllable weight, and to the types and causes of phonological change. The discussion assumes no detailed previous knowledge and proceeds in a logical and pedagogically meticulous manner. Key concepts are highlighted in bold type and in all instances richly illustrated with examples. This chapter serves not only as a concise and engaging background for the ensuing account of English historical phonology, but also as a useful introduction to any course in historical linguistics.

Chapter 3 tackles the monumental task of providing a coherent account of the developments from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) through Proto-Germanic (PGmc) to OE. For the most part the material included and excluded makes sense, but there are some infelicities and some key developments missing. The most obvious is the lack of discussion of the concept of Ingvæonic or the Anglo-Frisian complex. While it is noted that “historically, the languages of this group [West Germanic (WGmc)], especially Frisian, Dutch and Flemish, are most closely related to Old English” (p. 60), none of the shared features of Old Frisian (OFr), Old Saxon (OS), and OE are noted. A simple reference to the excellent, concise discussion in Bremmer Reference Bremmer2009:125–128 would be a good start, but a very brief listing of these features would help to underscore the close relationship as well as introduce some salient features of OE. Examples would include rounding of long and short a before nasals, nasal loss and compensatory lengthening before f, s, þ, fronting of long and short a > æ, and palatalization of WGmc ⁺ k, ⁺ g.

A detailed discussion of the First Consonant Shift and Verner's Law is followed by the odd comment that “the changes covered by Verner's Law are shared by all dialects of Old Germanic except Gothic” (p. 66). While it is well known that the effects of Verner's Law have—for reasons poorly understood—been largely disrupted in the Gothic strong verbs and class 1 weak verbs, there are plenty of reflexes of Verner's Law in Gothic such as fadar ‘father’, filhan ‘hide’ versus fulgins ‘hidden’, taihun ‘ten’ versus tigjus ‘decades’ (Krause Reference Krause1953:120–122). Thus, the phrase “except Gothic” should simply be deleted.

Finally, in the section Some IE Vowel Changes in Germanic, a nonexistent merger of PIE ⁺ i, ⁺ e in PGmc ⁺ i is put forth, with the following correspondences as examples: Latin ventus ‘wind’ : OE wind and Latin sedeo ‘I sit’ : PGmc ^∗ sitjan. This merger did not happen, otherwise PIE ⁺ h₁ed- ‘eat’ would yield PGmc ^∗ itan instead of OE etan, OS etan, Old High German eʒʒan, etc. Minkova has conflated two inner-Germanic changes into one, referring to the result as a merger. The raising of PGmc ⁺ e > later PGmc ⁺ i postdates any PIE > PGmc sound change. The early Germanic loanword in Finnish rengas ‘ring’ from PGmc ⁺ hrengaz ensures that prenasal raising is a later development. Furthermore, the raising of PGmc ⁺ e to Northwest Germanic (NWGmc) ⁺ i before ⁺ j, ⁺ i, ⁺ i: occurs later still and does not affect Gothic. So the proper sequence would be, PGmc ⁺ setjan > NWGmc ⁺ sitjan > WGmc ⁺ sittjan > OE sittan. All of these quibbles aside, the chapter does a good job of presenting just the right level of detail accounting for a period of some two millennia.

Chapters 4 and 5 present the development of English consonants from OE to PDE, and it is here that Minkova's innovative research program shines through. Not content with handbook accounts that have been unreflectively passed down from edition to edition, Minkova is not afraid to put forward fresh ideas meticulously supported by evidence from research in philology, phonetics, theoretical phonology, and verse form. A prime example is her book Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English (2003), which, to my mind, established that phonemicization of the palatalization of WGmc ⁺/g/ and ⁺/k/ must be centuries later than traditionally assumed on the basis of well-known patterns of alliteration in OE poetry. In chapters 4 and 5, Minkova leads the reader through a long list of issues, such as the status and development of <sc>, the status of rhotics, and the fate of <h>. At each turn, relevant literature is cited, the facts are concisely laid out, and most often an evaluation of the developments is provided. Minkova and I do not always agree (for example, with regard to the history of rhotics), but that is beside the point. This book puts every tool in the hands of the motivated student and researcher to read the literature and then make independent judgments.

In chapters 6, 7, and 8, Minkova deals with the vowels of OE, ME, and EModE, respectively. Here she makes the wise pedagogical decision to present a clear and detailed account of those developments in each period that have substantial repercussions for PDE. In the chapter on OE vowels, for example, the discussion is limited to an excellent account of i-mutation/i-umlaut, homorganic cluster lengthening (yielding PDE alternations such as child–children), the salient developments in the long vowels and diphthongs, then the fate of unstressed vowels. The presentation of homorganic cluster lengthening stands out in particular for its lucid presentation of prosodic issues so often absent in earlier work, and the wealth of examples is both useful and interesting. There are some persistent difficulties with the characterization and periodization of pre-OE reconstructed forms. Earlier decisions to omit Ingvæonic developments have to be directly addressed, so the Ingvæonic nasal loss and compensatory lengthening before voiceless fricatives is finally introduced as an early example of vowel lengthening before nasals in a footnote (p. 169).

When speaking of pre-OE reconstruction, it is imperative to make sharp distinctions between PGmc, NWGmc, WGmc, and Ingvæonic innovations. Yet these examples are often muddled, and “Germanic” is used as a cover term for all four stages in the early development of the Germanic languages. A single example will suffice. On page 175, Minkova discusses WGmc ⁺/a:n/, which yields OE /o:n/, citing the examples Gmc ⁺ mān- > OE mōna ‘moon’. The problem here is that there is no long /a:/ in PGmc. The exception is the tiny set of instances, where long /a:/ resulted from the nasal loss and compensatory lengthening (for example, PGmc ⁺ braŋxta > later PGmc ⁺ brāxta ‘brought’). Gothic mēna ‘moon’ shows the PGmc state of affairs; the subsequent development of PGmc ⁺/e:/ to long ⁺/a:/ is found only in the NWGmc languages. The rounding of WGmc ⁺/a:n/ (OE, OFr mōna) is an Ingvæonic development, which must predate the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England.

Perhaps the most challenging and satisfying chapter in the book is chapter 7, The Vowels in Middle English. Dialects. Spelling Innovations. Vowel Quality and Quantity. PDE Alternations Traced back to ME. Minkova begins the chapter with a survey of ME dialects stressing the challenges posed by the paucity of extant texts from wide swaths of the ME dialect continuum. She then goes on to provide a masterful overview of orthographic traditions and innovations, many of which leave traces in PDE orthographic conventions. The unusual attention paid to philological detail is interesting and commendable. The replacement of <u> by <o> in words such as OE <sunu> > ME <son(e)> ‘son’, for example, which Minkova characterizes as “a purely visual stratagem” intended “to avoid a confusing sequence of downstrokes in the writing of letters with vertical strokes…” (p.189). This fascinating discussion invites a budding scholar to investigate the intriguing field of paleography/ philology as a key component of research in historical phonology. This section is followed by a nearly twenty-page discussion of the intricacies of ME letter-to-vowel correspondences. The section on ME quantitative changes such as open-syllable lengthening and various vocalic shortening processes is preceded by a crucial transitional section entitled Quantitative Changes: Why Do They Matter? In this section, Minkova assumes the role of the experienced instructor who has answered this question, patiently and thoroughly, no doubt a thousand times.

Finally, Minkova begins the chapter on EModE with the obvious but important admonition that the closer one gets to PDE, “the more daunting the task of describing the history of the language becomes” (p. 234). The chapter introduction explains just why this is. Then Minkova introduces some EModE qualitative vocalic changes before launching into the heart of the chapter, her extended account of the Great/Long/English vowel shift. Suffice it to say that the twenty-plus pages devoted to this central development of EModE is not a regurgitation of information found in earlier handbooks. From the title of section 8.2.2, it is clear that Minkova is not satisfied with the traditional labels for this shift, and she goes into great detail on the complexity of the shift from a geographic and historical sociolinguistic perspective. She also devotes considerable attention to the mechanisms of the shift. The section ends with an interesting discussion of the influence of post-vocalic -r and its loss in some dialects.

At this point, there are still 82 pages of text, two chapters, left in the volume. Rather than embark on the hopeless task of describing the phonology of the numerous modern “World Englishes”, Minkova provides a crucial chapter on the history of English word stress (chapter 9) and a second chapter on the history of English verse forms (chapter 10). The attentive reader will have noticed that both of these topics are interwoven into the first seven chapters of the volume and are very often central to Minkova's own research. These last chapters are exceptionally interesting and of tremendous value to scholars of the history of English phonology.

The past decade has seen a mini-boom in the publication of introductory English-language materials for the history of the Germanic languages. Still, the release of a new introduction to the history of English phonology is a major event, and Donka Minkova's book will serve a generation of young scholars extremely well. In the public sphere, one often hears complaints that professors are too involved in research to provide effective teaching. A Historical Phonology of English provides an eloquent rebuttal, demonstrating on virtually every page how excellence in research informs excellent teaching.