To wonder about pronounciation of women?

[Kingdombythesea]

All my life, I’ve assumed that the word women, when referring to women as a plural, is pronounced wimmen. But listening to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks lately , and women is always pronounced as wumman. Just like the single, a woman. So now I wonder if my version, wimmen was just a regional pronounciation?

I've only ever heard the pronunciation wimmin and I've lived in north, even further north and south!

Off topic but it's pronunciation not pronounciation.

I'm from London and pronounce women 'wimmin.'

I have always pronounced it as "wimmin" but my son, early 20s, says "wuhmen" and I find myself picking him up on this and wondering why he's pronouncing it wrong. Reading your post, maybe he's not pronouncing it wrong!

I think it's generally pronounced 'people' these days.

QueenBodicea it seems to be a shift occuring then.

How would you pronounce the word, 'womb'?

@PusheenLove

How would you pronounce the word, 'womb'?

Woom.

I pronounce wimmin (women) and have also noticed mainly Scottish female speakers pronouncing women as wumman. I just thought it was a regional thing. But it always jumps out at me as being mispronounced.

I pronounce women the same as woman. I seem to be in the minority here though! I’m from the East coast of Scotland but I have no idea if it’s a regional thing or if I’m just wrong

I’m trying to think back to a podcast with a pronunciation of women that was not “wimmin” , and they made a point of mentioning it at the start. I think the person speaking was Canadian?

However I’m at the point where I’ve read woman and women too much now, I’m losing the plot.

@PepsiArcade

I pronounce women the same as woman. I seem to be in the minority here though! I’m from the East coast of Scotland but I have no idea if it’s a regional thing or if I’m just wrong

As I said Pepsi, I have noticed mainly Scottish female speakers pronouncing women as woman. It strikes me as wrong, but doesn't grate or get on my nerves. I'm from South East England but have many relatives in North East Scotland. I remember my aunty telling me where she stayed (and she meant the place she lived) God I love the English language!

My ex husband used to pronounce it in the way the OP is describing. He is from NI.

Noted about the spelling of pronunciation

Midlands but have lived down south and been north a fair bit

Wuh man = 1 woman
Wimmen = more than 1 woman (women)

Google tells me there is a word womyn , which is "non-standard spelling of ‘women’ adopted by some feminists in order to avoid the word ending -men" ? So is this it?

Described as ‘an alternative political spelling’ by Wikipedia

Definitely noticed this too. Mainly on R4. Feels like it’s purposeful as a possible political or cultural meaning but when I hear it, am never too sure what the intent is, like is it meant to be ‘inclusive’ but by dint of using this odd pronunciation it ends up being elitist and exclusionary. Either way, it’s annoying.

Yes I’ve heard it on R4.
It’s almost as if a memo has gone round

I’ve noticed it when women has a possessive apostrophe. Then it seems to do this:
Women - wimmin
Women’s clothing - wuhmun’s clothing (with the u as a schwa).

I pronounce them the same and always have. South East Scotland.

I've lived in several parts of the world, currently in Australia, and I've never heard the plural pronounced "Wummen", it's always "Wimmen".

Womxn. Womyn. It’s trendy. It makes women equal to men if you change the pronunciation according to a podcast I was listening to. I find it irritating and a little confusing until my ear adjusts. Most people just say women.

I say wumen and wuman, why does the pronunciation of the first half need to change? South West England.

I've always said "wimmin", have sometimes heard people say "wemmen".