High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The phonological history of English consonants is part of the phonological history of the English language in terms of changes in the phonology of consonants.H-cluster reductions. The wine-whine merger is the merger of /hw/ (or /?/, spelt wh) with /w/. It occurs in the speech of the great majority of English speakers. The hole-whole merger is the replacement of /hw/ with /h/ before the vowels /o?/ and /u?/ which occurred in Old English. The yew-hew merger is a process that causes the cluster /hj/ to be reduced to /j/. The hl-cluster, hr-cluster and hn-cluster reductions are three reductions that occurred in Middle English that caused the loss of /h/ from the initial consonant clusters /hl/, /hr/ and /hn/.Y-cluster reductions. Yod-dropping is the elision of the sound [j].Yod-coalescence changes the clusters [dj], [tj], [sj] and [zj] into [d?], [t?], [?] and [?] respectively.