/hw/ and whisky

[Robert McColl Millar]

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Whether or not the <wh> in _whisky_ is 'etymological' or not, it
is still pronounced -- at the very least -- as an unvoiced
semi-vowel (possibly with a velar fricative preceding)in my
(Western) dialect of Scots. I might be a bit suspicious of this
being a spelling pronunciation, along the lines of /hw/ in
_whelk_, which older Scots would call a _wulk_, if it were not for
the fact that here, in the North-East, _whisky_ is tradionally in
line with all other <wh> words in being pronounced with initial
/f/ -- perhaps under Gaelic influence.



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Robert McColl Millar
University of Aberdeen
Scotland
enl097 at abdn.ac.uk