Why does the word "one" sound like "wun", when phonetically it should sound like "own"?

Question

Why does the word "one" sound like "wun", when phonetically it should sound like "own"? I was checking in the dictionary, and all the words spelled with O sound like o,au, or aw. except "one" and "once"
Even if it is derived from spanish, it would sould like U, like uno, un or unico.
I "W"onder where does the "W" sound come from?

Answer 1

This is an instance of a "warring dialects" in England. Specifically, the pronunciation from ONE regional dialect took over, but it was not able to replace the earlier established SPELLING.

"“If you’ve ever wondered how on earth a word spelled one could be pronounced ‘wun’ and once spelled ‘wunce’, the answer. . . is that Southern (England) pronunciations attached themselves to East Midland spellings. Once they were pronounced more or less as spelled – i.e., ‘oon’ and ‘oons’.”

– The Mother Tongue – English & How It Got That Way, Bill Brysen, ISBN: 0-380-71543-0, page 124.
http://culturalcommunication.blogspot.com/2006/02/one-and-once-and-for-all.html

"Originally pronounced as it still is in only, and in dial. good 'un, young 'un, etc.; the now-standard pronunciation "wun" began c.14c. in southwest and west England (Tyndale, a Gloucester man, spells it won in his Bible translation), and it began to be general 18c. "

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=one

Note also the late date for the pronunciation "wun" becoming general. By this time the spelling "one" was already well-established.

Incidentally, some language experts were NOT happy with the spread of this "new pronouncation." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "The orthoepist C. Cooper (Grammatica (1685)). .. describes the pronunciations wun for ‘one’ and wuts for ‘oats’ as ‘barbarous speaking.’"
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001927.php

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

it should sound like french une and similar to ounce except the w sound was added to cover the phonetic rule of not having a preceding a word with a vowel.
this is an effect of the differences between written and spoken English, you will not find it mentioned in many dictionaries or even in most of the English text books. try sounding it as "an une" or as "a une" and you will hear what I mean. the form an one (without the W sound) wants to run together and sound like a different word.(anon?a nun?) and a similar problem is involved with (no W)a one (a yawn? eon? awn?)I do not have a source to quote on this, sorry

Answer 4

There are thousands of words that don't sound like they should - that's why "hooked on phonics" type stuff doesn't really work. As an example, think of all the "ough" words - through, rough, although--, just for starters. How about wed-nes-day which should be spelled wens day.Look at the first sentence - sound and should how should the "ou" sound. If you start looking for these words, you can go on forever. This is one of the reasons why it is wrong to think that people who can't spell are stupid--you have to memorize each word by itself because the rules don't work. I once said that the "ing" sound always sounded as it does in ring and the next word on the list was ginger. See?

Answer 5

English is a weird language. It borrows words from many languages, and borrows the pronunciation from many languages also.

Early English was a combination of two Germanic languages and Latin, and maybe another language. In 1066 the French language started influencing English in a big way.

Every time England spread out to take another colony, it brought back words and pronunciation and spelling rules.

One Example:

blood, originally spelled BLUID, pronounced like mud
good, once spelled gude
food,
mood ( when you are talking about grammar, it's pronounced 'mode')

That's at least four pronunciations. The letter string "ough" has at least seven pronunciations.

It depends on where the initial word came from.

Answer 6

Apparently it went from being pronounced 'own' to 'ooon', then to 'wone' (to rhyme with tone,) then 'wooon', and then 'wun' as it is now.

Allegedly it altered in the same manner that the word 'oats' in some accents is pronounced 'oo-uts' - if you know what I mean, the 'oo-u' sounds a lot like 'oo-wu'. From 'oats' to 'oots' to 'oo-uts' to 'wuts'.

Answer 7

Not in my book:

1. Won
2. Too
3.Threee
4. Fore
5. Phive
6. Sicks
7. Sevven
8. Ate
9. Nien
10. Tin

Does this help?

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Answer 9

The "e" is silent and the "on" is pronounced as in "month", which you'll note that, pronunciation notwithstanding, is not spelt "munth".

Answer 10

Just to add to the fun, "ghoti" is pronounced "fish". That is to say, gh as in trough, o as in women, and ti as in nation.