[o]→[∅]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 5/5

Close-mid back rounded vowel to Empty sound / Zero

The elision of the back vowel [o] is a common sound change, typically occurring as syncope (medial loss) or apocope (final loss). While mid-vowels are more stable than high vowels, they systematically disappear in languages with strong stress-timed rhythms as syllables are compressed.

Phonetic Effects

Elision, Syncope, Apocope

Language Examples

Latin to Spanish Romance

calidus [o/u]→caldo [∅]— Syncope: loss of the unstressed medial vowel.

tabula→tabla

Old English to Modern English Germanic

mōna [oːnɑ]→moon [∅]— Apocope: historical loss of the final vowel after reduction to schwa.

Ancient Greek Hellenic

apo (from)→ap' [∅]— Apocope of final vowels in prepositions before another vowel.

Related Transformations

Reverse

More Romance Shifts

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

Sources & References

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