Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩

The pronunciation of the digraph ⟨wh⟩ in English has changed over time, and still varies today between different regions and accents. It is now most commonly pronounced /w/, the same as a plain initial ⟨w⟩, although some dialects, particularly those of Scotland, Ireland, and the Southern United States, retain the traditional pronunciation /hw/, generally realized as [ʍ], a voiceless "w" sound. The process by which the historical /hw/ has become /w/ in most modern varieties of English is called the wine–whine merger. It is also referred to as glide cluster reduction.

Before rounded vowels, a different reduction process took place in Middle English, as a result of which the ⟨wh⟩ in words like who and whom is now pronounced /h/. (A similar sound change occurred earlier in the word how.)

Early history

What is now English ⟨wh⟩ originated as the Proto-Indo-European consonant *kʷ (whose reflexes came to be written ⟨qu⟩ in Latin and the Romance languages). In the Germanic languages, in accordance with Grimm's Law, Indo-European voiceless stops became voiceless fricatives in most environments. Thus the labialized velar stop *kʷ initially became presumably a labialized velar fricative *xʷ in pre-Proto-Germanic, then probably becoming *[ʍ] – a voiceless labio-velar approximant – in Proto-Germanic proper. The sound was used in Gothic and represented by the letter hwair. In Old High German, it was written as ⟨huu⟩, a spelling also used in Old English along with ⟨hƿ⟩ (using the letter wynn). In Middle English the spelling was changed to ⟨hw⟩ (with the development of the letter ⟨w⟩) and then ⟨wh⟩, but the pronunciation remained [ʍ].

Because Proto-Indo-European interrogative words typically began with *kʷ, English interrogative words (such as who, which, what, when, where) typically begin with ⟨wh⟩ (for the word how, see below). As a result, such words are often called wh-words, and questions formed from them are called wh-questions. In reference to this English order, a common cross-lingual grammatical phenomenon affecting interrogative words is called wh-movement.

Developments before rounded vowels

Before rounded vowels, such as /uː/ or /oː/, there was a tendency, beginning in the Old English period, for the sound /h/ to become labialized, causing it to sound like /hw/. Words with an established /hw/ in that position came to be perceived (and spelt) as beginning with plain /h/. This occurred with the interrogative word how (Proto-Germanic *hwō, Old English hū).

A similar process of labialization of /h/ before rounded vowels occurred in the Middle English period, around the 15th century, in some dialects. Some words which historically began with /h/ came to be written ⟨wh⟩ (whole, whore). Later in many dialects /hw/ was delabialized to /h/ in the same environment, regardless of whether the historic pronunciation was /h/ or /hw/ (in some other dialects the labialized /h/ was reduced instead to /w/, leading to such pronunciations as the traditional Kentish /woʊm/ for home). This process affected the pronoun who and its inflected forms. These had escaped the earlier reduction to /h/ because they had unrounded vowels in Old English, but by Middle English the vowel had become rounded, and so the /hw/ of these words was now subject to delabialization:

• who – Old English hwā, Modern English /huː/
• whom – Old English hwǣm, Modern English /huːm/
• whose – Old English hwās, Modern English /huːz/

By contrast with how, these words changed after their spelling with ⟨wh⟩ had become established, and thus continue to be written with ⟨wh⟩ 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 area indicated shows the areas in the southeastern United States with the greatest contrast between /hw/ and /w/. In most other areas of the United States, the pronunciations have merged.

The wine–whine merger is the phonological merger by which /hw/, historically realized as a voiceless labio-velar approximant [ʍ], comes to be pronounced the same as plain /w/, that is, as a voiced labio-velar approximant [w]. John C. Wells refers to this process as Glide Cluster Reduction. It causes the distinction to be lost between the pronunciation of ⟨wh⟩ and that of ⟨w⟩, so pairs of words like wine/whine, wet/whet, weather/whether, wail/whale, Wales/whales, wear/where, witch/which become homophones. 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 found that /hw/ was retained in all wh- words throughout Cumbria, Northumberland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, but the distinction was largely absent throughout the rest of England.

The merger is essentially complete in England, Wales, the West Indies, South Africa, Australia, and in the speech of young speakers in New Zealand. However, some conservative RP speakers in England may use /hw/ for ⟨wh⟩, a conscious choice rather than a natural feature of their accent.

The merger is not found in Scotland, most of Ireland (although the distinction is usually lost in Belfast and some other urban areas of Northern Ireland), 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 /w/, while in many regions weasel has the wh- sound.

Most speakers in the United States and Canada 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 that are likely to be pronounced as homophones by speakers having the wine–whine merger.

Homophonous pairs

/w/	/hw/	IPA	Notes
wack	whack	ˈwæk
wail	whale	ˈweɪl	With pane–pain merger
wale	whale	ˈweɪl, ˈweːl
Wales	whales	ˈweɪlz, ˈweːlz
wang	whang	ˈwæŋ
ware	where	ˈwɛː(r), ˈweːr
wary	wherry	ˈwɛri	With Mary-marry-merry merger
watt	what	ˈwɒt	In certain dialects
way	whey	ˈweɪ
weal	wheel	ˈwiːl
wear	where	ˈwɛː(r), ˈweːr
weather	whether	ˈwɛðə(r)
weigh	whey	ˈweɪ	With wait–weight merger
we'll	wheel	ˈwiːl	In certain dialects
welp	whelp	ˈwɛlp
wen	when	ˈwɛn
were (man)	where	ˈwɛː(r), ˈweːr
were (to be)	whir	ˈwɜː(r)
wet	whet	ˈwɛt
wether	whether	ˈwɛðə(r)
wide	why'd	ˈwaɪd
wield	wheeled	ˈwiːld
wig	whig	ˈwɪɡ
wight	white	ˈwaɪt
wile	while	ˈwaɪl	In certain dialects
win	when	ˈwɪn	With pin-pen merger
win	whin	ˈwɪn
wince	whence	ˈwɪns	With pin-pen merger
wind (verb)	whined	ˈwaɪnd
wine	whine	ˈwaɪn
wined	whined	ˈwaɪnd
wire	why're	ˈwaɪə(r)
wise	why's	ˈwaɪz
wish	whish	ˈwɪʃ
wit	whit	ˈwɪt
witch	which	ˈwɪtʃ
wither	whither	ˈwɪðə(r)
woe	whoa	ˈwoʊ, ˈwoː
word	whirred	ˈwɜː(r)d	With nurse merger
world	whirled	ˈwɜː(r)ld	With nurse merger
world	whorled	ˈwɜː(r)ld	In certain dialects
Y; wye	why	ˈwaɪ

Pronunciations and phonological analysis of the distinct wh sound

As mentioned above, the sound of initial ⟨wh⟩, when distinguished from plain ⟨w⟩, is often pronounced as a voiceless labio-velar approximant [ʍ], a voiceless version of the ordinary [w] sound. In some accents, however, the pronunciation is more like [hʍ], and in some Scottish dialects it may be closer to [xʍ] or [kʍ]—the [ʍ] sound preceded by a voiceless velar fricative or stop. (In other places the /kw/ of qu- words is reduced to [ʍ].) In the Black Isle, the /hw/ (like /h/ generally) is traditionally not pronounced at all. Pronunciations of the [xʍ] or [kʍ] type are reflected in the former Scots spelling quh- (as in quhen for when, etc.).

In some dialects of Scots, the sequence /hw/ has merged with the voiceless labiodental fricative /f/. Thus whit ("what") is pronounced /fɪt/, whan ("when") becomes /fan/, and whine becomes /fain/ (a homophone of fine). This is also found in some Irish English with an Irish Gaelic substrate influence (which has led to a re-borrowing of whisk(e)y as Irish Gaelic fuisce, the word having originally entered English from Scottish Gaelic).

Phonologically, the distinct sound of ⟨wh⟩ is often analyzed as the consonant cluster /hw/, and it is transcribed so in most dictionaries. When it has the pronunciation [ʍ], however, it may also be analyzed as a single phoneme, /ʍ/.

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 politician, in the American television series House of Cards.
• The show King of the Hill, set in Texas, pokes fun at the issue through character Hank Hill's prominent, exaggerated [hʍ] pronunciation.
• A similar gag is in several episodes of Family Guy, with Brian becoming annoyed by Stewie's heavy emphasis of the /hw/ sound in his pronunciation of "Cool hWhip" and "hWil hWheaton"; a commercial closely approximating the Cool Whip dialog was put out for "hWheat Thins".
• In the comedy movie Hot Rod, the titular character Rod declares that his "safe word will be hwhiskey" and an exchange of overemphasized /hw/ ensues.
• American linguist Dr. Jackson Crawford has stated that he uses [hʍ], which he picked up from his grandmother's accent.

See also

• Phonological history of English consonants
• Phonological history of English consonant clusters