wh

[Rick Mc Callister]

	<wh> is sometimes described as /hw/ [especially in non-linguistic
media: English books, etc.] but more often [I believe] described as a
single --un-ASCII-able-- phoneme. I think "voiceless /w/" would work fine.
The sound is rapidly dying out in the US. When I was growing up, people
would sneer at those couldn't distinguish between Wales & whales. But now
when people speak of the "Prince of /weylz/" it's hard to know whether
they're talking about Charles or Moby Dick.

At 8:37 PM +0000 1/29/99, Peter &/or Graham wrote:
>Larry writes of initial /hw/ as if it were indeed /hw/.   I have seen this
>description of it in the text books, and been puzzled by it.   In my dialect
>(NZ) it is a voiceless /w/.   There is no /h/ at all.
>
>I'm just checking back, I guess.   Do some speakers actually say /h/+ /w/?
>I always thought the textbooks were wrong.
>
>Peter

[ Moderator's note:
  This discussion has moved far from Indo-European.  Let's consider it closed
  on this list.
  --rma ]