<w> as indicator of vowelitude

[Ronald Butters]

Orthographic <w> is a vowel indicator in words such as <awl>, distinguishing it from <Al>; and <mew>, distinguishing it from <me>. 

When the old-timers spoke of "w" as a "vowel", they were probably not thinking of it as a stand-alone indicator of a unique English vowel, but rather as a "letter" that was something added simply to indicate vowel quality, as opposed to its function as a consonant indicator, in, e.g., <win>.

If my memory of third grade is correct, they often went on to say that it is sometimes indicative of nothing phonological at all, as in <two>, pronounced exactly like <to>, and <mow>, where it is pronounced exactly  like <Mo>.

In the footnotes, they might also have indicated that <ow> was not unambiguous, e.g., <bow> is pronounced both /bo/ and /baw/.

On Mar 20, 2012, at 9:12 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> Is it possible that the vowel classification of "w" was designed to cover
> these OE exx.?
> 
> After all, English is English!
> 
> As for "cwm," it may seem like a cheat to some, but the OED cites show it
> in English geology discourse, without apology, italics, or quotation marks
> as far back as 1882.  That would make it no more non-English than a word
> like "eclair."
> 
> Nor are cwms restricted to travels in Wales. There's even a cwm on Mount
> Everest.
> 
> JL

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