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’wh’ sound in American English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5715 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 65 of 110 30 May 2009 at 8:17am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
witch - which, whence - wince, wine - whine, win - when, wit - whit, whall - wall, wile - while, wail - whale, weel - wheel, &c, &c, &c... If you would read my arguments you might find there is more to them than your paraphrase leads one to believe. If continuation of this reply warrants a better statement then I will not stop, viz., if you want ME to make a new argument then please come up with something that authenticates YOUR argument. In the very first post I offered dismay at people cutting words off words and clipping phonology. I then said 'That said, either pronunciation is acceptable.' It should be pronounced phonetically and is, and much more often than you think but either way is acceptable. Let me add that I don't say 'what' because it makes ME appear educated, as your facetious remarks seem to imply, but that I do it because it IS educated. Are you saying 'wat' sounds more educated? If I understand you correctly: people who think they're educated pronounce the word phonetically and people who are educated don't? Whence on Earth did you procure this information? The tumult these replies bring to my mind are staggering. 'something used by old people to appear intelligent.' You've got to be kidding me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| modus.irrealis Bilingual Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 5881 days ago 29 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English*, Greek*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Danish, Turkish | Message 66 of 110 30 May 2009 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I don't get it -- if the only distinction for you between "win"/"when" or "whence"/"wince" is the initial consonant (or the "well"/"whale" example you brought up before), it seems odd that you're harping on what's correct and educated. If anything, the wine-whine merger is more widespread and standard than either the pin-pen merger or especially the fell-fail merger. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5901 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 67 of 110 30 May 2009 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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rout, for a consequent position, I think you better unmerge this also:
1) to - too - two you can say two like this: "towoo", to with a short vowel and too with a long vowel 2) "Thought": you have to say it "thoucht" with the "ch" like Dutch because in Dutch thought is "dacht" therefore the English "gh" wasn't silent in the history. 3) Laughed" has to be "laucht" because the same than number 2. 4) Their - there - they're have to be unmerged, you have to say "thery" - "ther" - "theyire" 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5901 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 68 of 110 30 May 2009 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, I thought that "win" is short i, but "when" is e. for me, those aren't the same, although I'm not sure of those things. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5925 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 69 of 110 30 May 2009 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Ok, thank you. I tried to think of some words, but couldn't really think of much.
No, I don't want you to come up with a new argument; I wanted a clarification of the intent of the argument.
It seems that my point has gone over your head. I was saying that 'hwat' was the pronunciation that many people used when they tried to seem educated; I deduced this from many other things as well. I did not mean to say that it was ONLY used by people who wanted to appear educated - I merely said that, in my experience, it was used more often by people who wanted to appear more educated and not necessarily by educated people in general.
Unfortunately, it seems that you have understood me incorrectly. Perhaps I should clarify what I meant: 'hwat' was traditionally the proper pronunciation of 'what' and was preferred by educated people. Uneducated people pronounced it 'wat' because that was what the orthography indicated. So, 'hwat' came to be associated with the educated. If one wanted to appear educated (whether or not they were educated is irrelevant), they could have used that pronunciation. Over time, I've noticed that, even among educated people, the 'wat' version is becoming more common and 'hwat' is dying out. 'hwat' is still used when someone wants to appear educated and smart, and so it is gaining that connotation of snobbishness (I know many people who regard those who say 'hwat' as snobs, though I don't hold this opinion). As such, eventually 'wat' will become standard usage, 'hwat' will die out even among educated people, and so only old educated (or wanting to appear aducated) people will use it. I did not mean to say that it was used only in that matter and I certainly didn't mean to say it as an attack on those who prefer the 'hw' pronunciation. I was describing what I think will happen in the future, not what is happening right now. I know that the 'hwat' pronunciation is still kicking (mainly among educated people, though it doesn't apply to all educated people, and some certain fellows who think that it makes them sound intelligent) and I didn't mean to denigrate it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6375 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 70 of 110 31 May 2009 at 5:54am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I bet older speakers of Old English complained when their children started to drop gender from their language. I bet older speakers of vulgar Latin scorned their children for dropping cases here and there. You know, without such things languages would never change and that'd be horrible. You wouldn't have your precious English or even French, Spanish or Italian. What a shame that would be if languages didn't change. I personally embrace change. Oh, and no one is mangling your English. No child has ever set out to speak 'incorrectly'. They are simply born into the altered English and that's what is normal for them. I think this occurs because a language is essentially 'copied' naturally from the minds of the natives into the minds of the children. This natural process cannot be without the occasional mistake such as when 'th' becomes encoded as 'f' which in most areas is a speech impediment and in other is a part of the local dialect! These mistakes are, dare I say, the fantastic driving force behind language evolution. They have given us French instead of Latin and Russian instead of Old Church Slavonic. This reminds me so much of DNA. DNA is copied by the body over and over again but sometimes it is copied wrong. That is to say it makes a mistake. It's eye-opening to note that these mistakes are the mutations that lead to evolution by natural selection. That's because in our western culture so often people despise mistakes. Without mistakes there would be no evolution at all because there would be no mutations and there would probably only be proto-cells floating around in the ocean forever. Indeed, without mistakes we would not learn. Where people see failure I see opportunity. Such a shame. You seem so bitter about something that I find to be quite fascinating and dare I say beautiful. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5715 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 71 of 110 31 May 2009 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You're correct. I don't pronounce them that way but for me the initial consonants are more important to the vowels in these cases. It's far easier to distinguish a 'wh' sound than a slight vowel shift. If you refuse to correct your 'wh' then I expect you would refuse to correct your vowels. Sorry for being presumptuous. Edited by Rout on 31 May 2009 at 8:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5715 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 72 of 110 31 May 2009 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Don't be a fool. Those are homophones. 'wet'-'whet,' &c. are not. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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