The pronunciation of the
digraph in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
has changed over time, and still varies today between different regions and
accents Accent may refer to:
Speech and language
* Accent (sociolinguistics), way of pronunciation particular to a speaker or group of speakers
* Accent (phonetics), prominence given to a particular syllable in a word, or a word in a phrase
** Pitch acce ...
. It is now most commonly pronounced , the same as a plain initial , although some dialects, particularly those of
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, and the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
, retain the traditional pronunciation , generally
realized as , a
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
"w" sound. The process by which the historical has become in most modern varieties of English is called the wine–whine merger. It is also referred to as glide cluster reduction.
Before
rounded vowels
In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pron ...
, a different
reduction process took place in
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
, as a result of which the in words like ''who'' and ''whom'' is now pronounced . (A similar sound change occurred earlier in the word ''how''.)
Early history
What is now English originated as the
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
consonant *''kʷ'' (whose reflexes came to be written in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
). In the
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
, in accordance with
Grimm's Law
Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Grim ...
, Indo-European
voiceless stop
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
s became voiceless
fricatives
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
in most environments. Thus the
labialized
Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
velar stop *''kʷ'' initially became presumably a labialized velar
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
*''xʷ'' in pre-Proto-Germanic, then probably becoming – a
voiceless labio-velar approximant
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
– in
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
proper. The sound was used in
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
and represented by the letter
hwair
Hwair (also , , ) is the name of , the Gothic letter expressing the or sound (reflected in English by the inverted '' wh''-spelling for ). Hwair is also the name of the Latin ligature (capital ) used to transcribe Gothic.
Name
The name of the ...
. In
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
, it was written as , a spelling also used in
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
along with (using the letter
wynn
Wynn or wyn (; also spelled wen, ƿynn, and ƿen) is a letter of the Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound .
History The letter "W"
While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph , ...
). In
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
the spelling was changed to (with the development of the letter
) and then , but the pronunciation remained .
Because Proto-Indo-European
interrogative words
An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', ''who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most o ...
typically began with *''kʷ'', English interrogative words (such as ''who'', ''which'', ''what'', ''when'', ''where'') typically begin with (for the word ''how'', see below). As a result, such words are often called
wh-word
An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', ''who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most of ...
s, and questions formed from them are called
wh-question
A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are interrogative ...
s. In reference to this English order, a common cross-lingual grammatical phenomenon affecting interrogative words is called
wh-movement
In linguistics, wh-movement (also known as wh-fronting, wh-extraction, or wh-raising) is the formation of syntactic dependencies involving interrogative words. An example in English is the dependency formed between ''what'' and the object position ...
.
Developments before rounded vowels
Before
rounded vowel
In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pron ...
s, such as or , there was a tendency, beginning in the
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
period, for the sound to become
labialized
Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
, causing it to sound like . Therefore, words with an established in that position came to be perceived (and spelt) as beginning with plain . This occurred with the interrogative word ''how'' (Proto-Germanic *''hwō'', Old English ''hū'').
A similar process of labialization of before rounded vowels occurred in the
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
period, around the 15th century, in some dialects. Some words which historically began with came to be written (''whole'', ''whore''). Later in many dialects was delabialized to in the same environment, regardless of whether the historic pronunciation was or (in some other dialects the labialized was reduced instead to , leading to such pronunciations as the traditional
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
ish for ''home''). This process affected the pronoun ''
who
Who or WHO may refer to:
* Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun
* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism
* World Health Organization
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...
'' and its inflected forms. These had escaped the earlier reduction to because they had unrounded vowels in Old English, but by Middle English the vowel had become rounded, and so the of these words was now subject to delabialization:
* ''who'' – Old English ''hwā'', Modern English
* ''whom'' – Old English ''hwǣm'', Modern English
* ''whose'' – Old English ''hwās'', Modern English
By contrast with ''how'', these words changed after their spelling with had become established, and thus continue to be written with like the other interrogative words ''which'', ''what'', etc. (which were not affected by the above changes since they had unrounded vowels – the vowel of ''what'' became rounded at a later time).
Wine–whine merger
The wine–whine merger is the phonological
merger
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
by which , historically realized as a
voiceless labio-velar approximant
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
comes to be pronounced the same as plain , that is, as a
voiced labio-velar approximant
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
.
John C. Wells
John Christopher Wells (born 11 March 1939) is a British phonetician and Esperantist. Wells is a professor emeritus at University College London, where until his retirement in 2006 he held the departmental chair in phonetics.
Career
Wells ea ...
refers to this process as
Glide
Glide may refer to:
* Gliding flight, to fly without thrust
Computing
*Glide API, a 3D graphics interface
*Glide OS, a web desktop
*Glide (software), an instant video messenger
*Glide, a molecular docking software by Schrödinger (company), Schr ...
Cluster Reduction.
[Wells, J.C., ''Accents of English'', CUP 1982, pp. 228–229.] It causes the distinction to be lost between the pronunciation of and that of , so pairs of words like ''wine''/''whine'', ''wet''/''whet'', ''weather''/''whether'', ''wail''/''whale'', ''Wales''/''whales'', ''wear''/''where'', ''witch''/''which'' become
homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
s. This merger has taken place in the dialects of the great majority of English speakers.
Extent of the merger
The merger seems to have been present in the south of England as early as the 13th century.
It was unacceptable in educated speech until the late 18th century, but there is no longer generally any
stigma attached to either pronunciation.
In the late nineteenth century,
Alexander John Ellis
Alexander John Ellis, (14 June 1814 – 28 October 1890), was an English mathematician, philologist and early phonetician who also influenced the field of musicology. He changed his name from his father's name, Sharpe, to his mother's maiden na ...
found that /hw/ was retained in all wh- words throughout
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...
,
Northumberland
Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey.
It is bordered by land on ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
and the
Isle of Man
)
, anthem = "O Land of Our Birth"
, image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg
, image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg
, mapsize =
, map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe
, map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green)
in Europe ...
, but the distinction was largely absent throughout the rest of England.
The merger is essentially complete in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, and in the speech of young speakers in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
.
However, some conservative
RP speakers in England may use for , a conscious choice rather than a natural feature of their accent.
The merger is not found in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, most of
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
(although the distinction is usually lost in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
and some other urban areas of
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
),
[Wells, 1982, p. 408.] and in the speech of older speakers in New Zealand. The distribution of the ''wh-'' sound in words does not always exactly match the standard spelling; for example, Scots pronounce ''whelk'' with plain , while in many regions ''weasel'' has the ''wh-'' sound.
Most speakers in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
have the merger. According to Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 49),
using data collected in the 1990s, there are regions of the U.S. (particularly in the Southeast) in which speakers keeping the distinction are about as numerous as those having the merger, but there are no regions in which the preservation of the distinction is predominant (see map). Throughout the U.S. and Canada, about 83% of respondents in the survey had the merger completely, while about 17% preserved at least some trace of the distinction.
Possible homophones
Below is a list of word pairs which are liable to be pronounced as homophones by speakers having the wine–whine merger.
Pronunciations and phonological analysis of the distinct ''wh'' sound
As mentioned above, the sound of initial , when distinguished from plain , is often pronounced as a
voiceless labio-velar approximant
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
, a voiceless version of the ordinary sound. In some accents, however, the pronunciation is more like , and in some Scottish dialects it may be closer to or —the sound preceded by a
voiceless velar fricative
The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, e.g. in ''loc ...
or
stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
. (In other places the of ''qu-'' words is reduced to .) In the
Black Isle
The Black Isle ( gd, an t-Eilean Dubh, ) is a peninsula within Ross and Cromarty, in the Scottish Highlands. It includes the towns of Cromarty and Fortrose, and the villages of Culbokie, Jemimaville, Rosemarkie, Avoch, Munlochy, Tore, and Nor ...
, the (like generally) is traditionally not pronounced at all. Pronunciations of the or type are reflected in the former Scots spelling ''quh-'' (as in ''quhen'' for ''when'', etc.).
In some dialects of
Scots, the sequence has merged with the
voiceless labiodental fricative
The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .
Some scholars also posit the voiceless labiodental approx ...
. Thus ''whit'' ("what") is pronounced , ''whan'' ("when") becomes , and ''whine'' becomes (a
homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
of ''fine''). This is also found in some
Irish English
Hiberno-English (from Latin ''Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland a ...
with an
Irish Gaelic
Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the ...
substrate influence (which has led to a re-borrowing of ''whisk(e)y'' as Irish Gaelic , the word having originally entered English from
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
).
Phonologically
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
, the distinct sound of is often analyzed as the
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
, and it is transcribed so in most dictionaries. When it has the pronunciation , however, it may also be analyzed as a single phoneme,
In popular culture
* A portrayal of the regional retention of the distinct ''wh-'' sound is found in the speech of the character
Frank Underwood, a
South Carolina
)''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
politician, in the American television series ''
House of Cards
A house of cards (also known as a card tower or card castle) is a structure created by stacking playing cards on top of each other, often in the shape of a pyramid. "House of cards" is also an Expression (language), expression that dates back to ...
''.
* The show ''
King of the Hill
''King of the Hill'' is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It aired its original non-syndicated run from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, and centers on the Hills, an Am ...
'', set in Texas, pokes fun at the issue through character Hank Hill's use of the hypercorrected pronunciation.
* A similar gag can be found in several episodes of ''
Family Guy
''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers around the Griffin family, Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter Griff ...
'', with Brian becoming annoyed by Stewie's over-emphasis of the sound in his pronunciation of "
Cool ''h''Whip", "
''h''Wheat Thins", and "
Wil ''h''Wheaton".
[See for example the YouTube video ]
See also
*
Phonological history of English consonants
This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of the English language which concern consonants.
Consonant clusters
H-cluster reductions
* Reduction of /hw/ – to /h/ in a few words (such as ''who''), but usually to , for t ...
*
Phonological history of English consonant clusters
The phonological history of the English language includes various changes in the phonology of consonant clusters.
H-cluster reductions
The H-cluster reductions are various consonant reductions that have occurred in the history of English, inv ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pronunciation of English (wh)
Splits and mergers in English phonology
Scots language