How to pronounce words beginning with "wh"

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In Daniel Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary Many words beginning with 'wh' has an initial italicized "h" attached to their pronunciation in IPA. For example what has /hwat/ I first thought it was to indicate aspiration. But In AC Gimson's book on phonetics has the 'h' after the letter to indicate aspiration. Then what does this 'h' indicate?

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[nq:1]In Daniel Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary Many words beginning with 'wh' has an initial italicized "h" attached to their pronunciation in ... AC Gimson's book on phonetics has the 'h' after the letter to indicate aspiration. Then what does this 'h' indicate?[/nq]
It means that you aspirate (breathe out) /very/ slightly, when pronouncing the 'w'. Not everyone does it, though, and those who do don't do it every time.

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[nq:1]In Daniel Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary Many words beginning with 'wh' has an initial italicized "h" attached to their pronunciation in ... AC Gimson's book on phonetics has the 'h' after the letter to indicate aspiration. Then what does this 'h' indicate?[/nq]
It indicates that words in wh- used to be pronounced hw-, and still are by a few people. I believe in an earlier age they were spelled hw- too, this sound having developed from Latin qu- (pronounced cw- or coo-).

Adrian

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In article , Adrian Bailey (Email Removed) writes
[nq:2]In Daniel Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary Many words beginning with 'wh' ... letter to indicate aspiration. Then what does this 'h' indicate?[/nq]
[nq:1]It indicates that words in wh- used to be pronounced hw-, and still are by a few people. I believe ... for a while, as also did the Scots language, but that doesn't make qu- the origin of wh- or hw-.[/nq]
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on 10/23/03 1:29 PM:
[nq:2]In Daniel Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary Many words beginning with 'wh' ... letter to indicate aspiration. Then what does this 'h' indicate?[/nq]
[nq:1]It indicates that words in wh- used to be pronounced hw-, and still are by a few people. I believe ... Germanic /xw-/ to English /hw-/. Latin retained the /kw/ sound, spelled , in the course of its own separate development.[/nq]

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In alt.english.usage on 23 Oct 2003 11:51:57 -0700 (Email Removed) (rastignak) posted:
[nq:1]In Daniel Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary Many words beginning with 'wh' has an initial italicized "h" attached to their pronunciation in ... AC Gimson's book on phonetics has the 'h' after the letter to indicate aspiration. Then what does this 'h' indicate?[/nq]
That's very interesting. I decided a few years ago that those people who include an H in their pronunciation of WH actually say HW. I think it does mean aspiration and Jones is right but Gimson is positionally challenged.

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[nq:1]Not from Latin. From Indo-European /kw-/ going to Germanic /xw-/ to English /hw-/. Latin retained the /kw/ sound, spelled , in the course of its own separate development.[/nq]
The distinct hw- pronunciation is especially common in Scotland. In mediaeval Scots it was often written "quh-".

"The nek to stoup quhen it the straik sall get, is sone eneuch."

-- Odysseus

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[nq:1]In Daniel Jones' Pronouncing Dictionary Many words beginning with 'wh' has an initial italicized "h" attached to their pronunciation in ... AC Gimson's book on phonetics has the 'h' after the letter to indicate aspiration. Then what does this 'h' indicate?[/nq]
Something different, I believe (without having Gimson's book to hand to check -- is the "h" in question only occurring after the "w" or are you referring to "h" after other symbols, too? I'll continue, assuming that you mean the "h" in Gimson occurs after other symbols, not just "w").

The "w" with an italicized "h" before it (the sound you hear in some older speakers and more especially Scottish accents) is normally represented in IPA by the symbol that looks like an upside-down "w". Technically, it's a voiceless labial-velar fricative, and is a phonologically distintictive, since in those accents that have it there is a difference in sound between "Wales" and "whales".

The superscript "h" (I'm assuming it's a superscript "h", since this is how it's normally written in such a position) is the usual way of showing the aspiration that occurs after a voiceless plosives in English, in a stressed- syllable-initial position. This isn't a phonologically distinguishing feature in English and is only marked in phonetic transcripts at certain levels of detail.

However, if Gimson is using "h" (superscript or otherwise) only to show the unique "hw" sound, then ignore the above!

Addendum: I've just looked in a copy of Gimson's An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English (Third Edition), and it seems that he does use the upside-down "w" IPA symbol for the "hw" sound and superscript "h" for post-voiceless-plosive aspiration. So, in summary, I'd say that you are looking at two different phenomena.

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[nq:1] on 10/23/03 1:29 PM:[/nq]
[nq:2] It indicates that words in wh- used to be ... sound having developed from Latin qu- (pronounced cw- or coo-).[/nq]
[nq:1]Not from Latin. From Indo-European /kw-/ going to Germanic /xw-/ toEnglish /hw-/. Latin retained the /kw/ sound, spelled , in the course of its own separate development.[/nq]
Thanks.

Adrian

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[nq:2]It indicates that words in wh- used to be pronounced ... sound having developed from Latin qu- (pronounced cw- or coo-).[/nq]
According to some phonology material I came across recently, in whatever dialect of English they were talking about, these words start with the unvoiced version of (w)

-- Wes Groleau

Is it an on-line compliment to call someone a Net Wit ?

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[nq:1]Norwegian, which is derived from Norse, which was a major contributor to the emergence of modern English, still uses the ... - Whitestone, also the interesting hverfur (spelling?) - why - which explains the problematical (for some) "wherefor art thou Romeo".[/nq]
"Hvorfor" in the bokmål language form (85-90% of population writes bokmål) "Kvifor" in the nynorsk language form (often associated with western dialects)
Origin: fyrir hví, or hvar fyrir
The "h" in "hv" was probably a sound (maybe like "ch" in the german word "ich") that changed to k in west-norwegian dialects and was lost in east.

How to pronounce words beginning with "wh"

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