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.

I don't understand. How does one not pronounce the h? So take the word whip. What is the difference between pronouncing the h and not pronouncing the h? I can't hear it in my brain.

No i pronounce it wip and wile

Ok I've seen a post that suggested that some people can't hear any difference between witch and which. My mind is blown. I have never heard this before. Is it true? Or made up?

Witch and which are exactly the same pronunciation to me.

I am from southern England and don't pronounce the h but I have a Scottish friend who does, and it sounds weird to me.

Wow. This is so new to me. My mind is really genuinely blown. It has never occurred to me for even an instant that the two could be pronounced the same.

I say wile and wip, south east, what do others say wu-hile and wu-hip?

It is supposed to be pronounced. Listen to any RP from the fifties, eg Joyce Grenfell, or the late Queen, and the h in white is very clearly spoken.
I do pronounce it, but it may be an age thing, as I’m not sure that my daughters do. I will listen closely ..

I know, it's so hard to vocalise in your head what is meant. Especially if you have never encountered the idea that there are other ways of pronouncing these words. So. For me, witch is sort if a soft 'w'. But if I say which, I sort of blow through my lips on the 'wh' bit. I honestly thought this was universal. This is the first time I have encountered the view that 'w' and 'wh' are not obviously and naturally and inevitably pronounced very differently.

Same, I didn’t realise anybody pronounced them differently to each other. Trying to work out how they could sound different but can’t 🤔

Also stewie griffin saying cool whip immediately came to mind when I read the title 😅

Ages ago, centuries in fact, some of those words were spelled with a hw- or hv-. It is an old pronunciation which remains in some places.

Steve Coogan played on this as the legendary Alan Partridge lol

I also can't understand pronouncing the H after the W?

I can't figure out if people are describing what I hear as hwip (whip) hwen (when) hwair (where) or if they are saying W-hair W-hip W-hen?

For me where and wear sound identical, as do which and witch. And when is wen, why is Y etc.

Yes, am Scottish and pronounce the h - so for me Wales and whales are not homophones for example. I live in England and am a primary school reading volunteer - the children here are taught it's a silent h. Many other regional differences in phonics, it's a bit confusing, the children correct me 😂

I know. It's so be baffling and hard to describe. Am I understanding this correctly, for some people wine and whine sound the same? I'm 61, this is honestly the first time I have encountered the idea that they could possibly sound the same!

Can confirm that for me whine and wine do not sound the same! But pull and pool are identical for me, but different for my English partner. Lots of other examples!

Yes - wine and whine, wile and while, were and whirr

Isn't life amazing? 😄

I think it's a Scottish thing. My husband almost makes 2 syllables out of the w and h "wh-h-ile" with a big intake of breath to start the sentence 😆.

I have English parents (one posher accent one more North East) but born/bred in Scotland so I have a weird accent. DH pronounces tortoise as "tor-toise" and I say "tor-tis".

Love linguistics, I think Scotland kept the original Ye Olde English pronunciation of many letters, especially vowels but English people (or more correctly what we now call England) changed it through the Middle and Modern English eras as the language evolved.

Various speakers from the UK and America saying ‘which’ here. Some speakers pronounce the h and others don’t (so it sounds like witch).

https://forvo.com/word/which/

Well, maybe Irish too. I'm still amazed. My DH is asleep next to me. I want to wake him up and say. Did you know some people pronounce wine and whine the exact same?

Probably will be all the Celtic areas 🙂.

Its fascinating, isnt it. If you look up the 'wh' words in the complete OED, they have examples of 'wh' words written as 'hw' (e.g. hwen) because that's how it was pronounced. The switch in the letters occurred around the time of the printing press which was run by mainly Flemish printers. They looked for patterns in spelling and because we had sh/ch/th and the occasional 'gh' which is a Dutch spelling (Ghent) they thought 'hw' looked untidy, so they switched it.

This is actually true

My (southern English) partner says horse and hoarse the same. And poor and pour. I can't even do that if I try!