wh

Peter &/or Graham petegray at btinternet.com
Sun Feb 7 11:49:16 UTC 1999


Rick said:

>Gaelic, /f, ph/ was perceived as a local "lenited form"
>where others /wh, w, bh/ and that pronunciation passed over to English,
...

The pattern of /w/ versus /wh/ might argue against this.   In my dialect at
least, /wh/ usually reflects the PIE *kw (what, which etc;  whether;  when,
whither;  wheel;  white).

You might have an argument for your point, in the cases of spelled wh which
are pronounced /w/ in /wh/ dialects, eg wharf, or cases where spelled wh
appears to be cognate with Greek /k/, eg. whirl (~/karpos/).

Peter



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