Do you pronounce the 'h' in words such as 'whip' and 'while' ?

[TheTecknician]

If you do, hwy ?

Seriously, this is something I've noticed in people's speech as I've got older. I'm fairly sure I was taught at school that the 'h' in these and other words was silent but maybe it's not necessarily so. Perhaps it's a matter of regional pronunciation or dialect.

Stevie Griffin says 'coolhwip' in Family Guy.

Scottish people pronounce the H

Stewie, not Stevie!

I had never noticed that I did but I do. The h sound is after the w though.

I don't pronounce the H , I'm from the SE/London area.

Yup.

It's normal in Scotland.

I’ve heard Irish people pronounce it too.

I guess it's at least regional then. I think I've heard Patrick Stewart do this as well.

I am Scottish and agree. While/Wile and where/were sound different.

I think it's Scottish/Irish predominantly or places where there's a large Irish population, like Liverpool.

Thankyou all. Is 'outwith', used instead of 'outside' also a Scottish word?

Yes, outwith is Scottish and we are very proud of it!

Yes we do 😁
Wh that is!

Ha. I’m a Scottish lawyer and I use outwith all the time and I will never accept Microsoft spellcheck telling me it should be out with.

And yes whine is pronounced differently to wine in these parts.

Giles Brandreth does. Old school posho. (Love him btw)

Im going to have to ring my (Scottish) husband and get him to say it now! I need to know!

I’ve lived in Scotland for more than 10 years and I'm yet to say outwith, but I have heard it used lots.

No. My accent doesnt do the h

I'm Scottish. My family moved to England when I was 9. The following year in an English lesson at school we had an exercise on homophones, i.e. words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. One set was witch and which. I was baffled by this as for me they sound completely different. There are so many other oddities in the way English people speak. Not pronouncing the r in words is another one, and using ar- to represent a long a sound, e.g. sarnie, just doesn't work for most non-English people.

Scottish father and Irish mother, the tell in my bland fairly RP accent is the h, th and ar. I like it, reflects my heritage.

Does anybody add an 'h' that isn't there? For example, a 'wee while'.

Do you mean, does anyone pronounce the "W" in "Wee," the same way as "Wh," in "while?'"

No, I can't imagine why anyone would. Wile would be pronounced differently to While, Wee is very different to the first Sound in Wheel.

I'm Scottish and I think of the H on WH as similar to the H in SH, you are making a different phonic, not pronouncing the H, as such.

I did a linguistics course ages ago, and one of the things I remember from it is that quite a lot of people pronounce "wh" differently from "w" without actually realising they're doing it.

If you asked them, they'd say they didn't. And it might be practically undetectable to the ear at normal speed. But if you recorded them and played it back slowly, then you could hear it.

It's kind of a weird linguistic fossil. It can get passed down through the generations without people consciously realising it.

Yes, we pronounce the Haitch in WH ☘️

I always thought it a posh thing. Doesn't David Attenborough do it?

Isn't Seth MacFarlane using Rex Harrison as inspiration for Stewie? So it's that old school British actor, upper class sort of pronunciation exaggerated.

I’m northern and don’t pronounce the “h”. I also don’t pronounce the “a” in “theatre” which winds my southern friends up no end.