Phonological history of wh
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The pronunciation of the digraph wh in English has varied with time, and can still vary today between different regions. According to the historical period and the accent of the speaker, it is most commonly realised as the consonant cluster /hw/ or as /w/. Before rounded vowels, as in who and whole, it is often realized as /h/.
The historical pronunciation of this digraph is in most cases /hw/, but in many dialects of English it has merged with /w/, a process known as the "wine-whine merger". In dialects which maintain the distinction, it is generally transcribed [ʍ], and is equivalent to a voiceless [w̥] or [hw̥].
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[edit] Labialization of /h/ and delabialization of /hw/
In the 15th century, historic /h/ was labialized before a rounded vowel, such as /uː/ or /oː/, and came to be written <hw>. The labialization did not occur in all dialects. Later in many dialects /hw/ was delabialized to /h/ in this same environment, whether or not it was the historic pronunciation; in others, the /h/ was dropped, leaving /w/.
- who - /huː/ (Old English hwā)
- whom - /huːm/ (Old English hwǣm)
- whole - /hoʊl/ (Old English hāl—cf. 'hale')
In Kent, the word 'home' is pronounced /woʊm/; the /h/ was labialized to /hw/ before the /oʊ/, and later Kentish became an h-dropping dialect.
[edit] Wh-labiodentalization
Wh-labiodentalization is the merger of /hw/ and the voiceless labiodental fricative /f/. It has occurred in some dialects of Scots, and in Hiberno-English with an Irish Gaelic substrate influence (something which has led to an interesting re-borrowing of whisk(e)y as fuiscí, having originally entered English from Scottish Gaelic). In Scots this leads to pronunciations like:
- whit ("what") - /fɪt/
- whan ("when") - /fan/
Whine and fine are homophonous /fain/.
[edit] Wine-whine merger
The wine-whine merger is a merger by which voiceless /hw/ is reduced to voiced /w/. It has occurred historically in the dialects of the great majority of English speakers. The resulting /w/ is generally pronounced [w], but sometimes [hw̥]; this may be hypercorrection.
The merger is essentially complete in England, Wales, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and is widespread in the United States and Canada. In accents with the merger, pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, weather/whether, wail/whale, Wales/whales, wear/where, witch/which etc. are homophonous. The merger is not found in Scotland, Ireland (except in the popular speech of Dublin, although the merger is now spreading more widely), and parts of the U.S. and Canada. The merger is not usually stigmatized except occasionally by very speech-conscious people.
According to Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 49)[1], while there are regions of the U.S. (particularly in the Southeast) where speakers keeping the distinction are about as numerous as those having the merger, there are no regions where 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.
The wine-whine merger, although apparently present in the south of England as early as the 13th century,[2] did not become acceptable in educated speech until the late 18th century. While some RP speakers still use /hw/, most accents of England, Wales, West Indies and the southern hemisphere have only /w/.
[edit] Phonology
Phonologically, the sound of the wh in words like whine in accents without the merger is either analyzed as the consonant cluster /hw/, and it is transcribed so in most dictionaries, or as a single phoneme /ʍ/, since it is sometimes realized as the single sound [ʍ]. The primary argument for it being a single phoneme is that /h/ does not form any other consonant clusters apart from /hj/ in words like 'hue' /hjuː/, and that can be analyzed as /h/ plus the diphthong /juː/ rather than as a cluster. Arguments for it being a consonant cluster are that the single-cluster argument is not convincing: only /s/ and /r/ form many clusters, and /ʃ/, for example, is only found as /ʃr/ apart from Yiddish borrowings; that historically there were several other h-clusters (/hn, hr, hl/), of which /hw/ is the last remaining; that speakers' intuition is that it is two consonants; and that in some dialects, such as in parts of Texas, the /h/ is being lost from /hj/ (see Houston) as well, just as it was lost earlier from /hw/ and despite the fact that these are not h-dropping dialects, suggesting cluster simplification.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Labov, William; Sharon Ash; Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.
- ^ Minkova, Donka (2004). "Philology, linguistics, and the history of /hw/~/w/.". in In Anne Curzan and Kimberly Emmons, eds.,. Studies in the History of the English language II: Unfolding Conversations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 7–46. ISBN 3-11-018097-9.
