Phonological history of wh

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 IPA|/ʍ/, IPA|/w/, or the consonant cluster IPA|/hw/. In a few words, it may be realized as IPA|/h/.

The pronunciation of this digraph as IPA|/ʍ/ is historically the oldest, but in many dialects of English this phoneme has merged with IPA|/w/, a process known as the "wine-whine merger".

Delabialization

In some words, IPA|/ʍ/ has been delabialized to IPA|/h/ before the vowels IPA|/oː/ and IPA|/uː/, resulting in the following pronunciations:

* who - IPA|/huː/ (Old English hwā)
* whom - IPA|/huːm/ (Old English hwǣm)

Wh-labiodentalization

Wh-labiodentalization is the merger of IPA|/ʍ/ and the voiceless labiodental fricative IPA|/f/ occurring in the Māori language and some dialects of Scots resulting in "wh"' denoting IPA|/f/. In Scots this leads to pronunciations like:

* whit (what) - IPA|/fɪt/
* whan (when) - IPA|/fan/

"Whine" and "fine" become homophonous as /fain/.

Wine-whine merger

The wine-whine merger is a merger by which (IPA|/ʍ/) or sequence IPA|/hw/ (spelled "wh") becomes voiced to IPA|/w/; it occurs in the speech of the great majority of English speakers. The resulting IPA|/w/ is generally pronounced like the original IPA|/w/, but sometimes like the original IPA|/ʍ/ or IPA|/hw/; this may be due to 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), 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, [cite book | first=Donka | last=Minkova | year=2004 | title=Studies in the History of the English language II: Unfolding Conversations | chapter=Philology, linguistics, and the history of IPA|/hw/~IPA|/w/. | editor=In Anne Curzan and Kimberly Emmons, eds., | pages=7-46 | location=Berlin | publisher=Mouton de Gruyter | id=ISBN 3-11-018097-9] did not become acceptable in educated speech until the late 18th century. While some RP speakers still use IPA|/ʍ/, most accents of England, Wales, West Indies and the southern hemisphere have only IPA|/w/.

Phonologically, the sound of the "wh" in words like "whine" in accents without the merger is either analyzed as the consonant cluster IPA|/hw/, and it is transcribed so in most dictionaries, or as a single phoneme /ʍ/, since it is realized as the single sound IPA| [ʍ] .

ee also

* Phonological history of English consonants
* Hwair
* Wh (digraph)

References