[ʔ]→[i]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 5/5

Glottal stop to Close front unrounded vowel

The loss of an initial glottal stop before a high front vowel is a natural path of weakening in many languages. The glottal closure is simply not needed to separate the vowel from silence or a preceding consonant, resulting in a clean vowel onset.

Phonetic Effects

De-glotticization, Vowel-onset Smoothing

Language Examples

German (colloquial variants) Germanic

[ˈʔiːɡl̩]→[ˈiːɡl̩]— Word-initial glottal stop before /i/ is frequently omitted in rapid speech

Related Transformations

Glottal reinforcement (Hard attack)

More Germanic Shifts

[a] → [ã] — Assimilatory Nasalization [a] → [∅] — Elision [a] → [ʔ] — Glottalization [a] → [ə] — Vowel Reduction [æ] → [ɛ] — Vowel Raising

Sources & References

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