What accent does not pronounce the letter H?

Question

I have a friend and an English teacher who use peculiar grammar. In words such as "Houston" and "human," they do not prounce the "H" and instead say "Ouston" and "uman". Is this a type of regional accent?

I would like to add that neither is Hispanic, Spanish, or French. One group up in New York and the other in England. Is this just a random occurence?

Answer 1

No, it is not random. It is characteristic of particular English dialects,some in Britian, some in the U.S.

First, I assume you mean the pronunciation is "yoomn" and "yoostn" -- since an English word is treated as beginning with a LONG u-sound that's how English handles it (as in ukulele, which likewise is pronounced with a "yoo-" at the beginning). I'm also betting that they do the same with "huge" and "humid", and that one or both your friends says "humble" as if it were spelled "umble". And finally, since you didn't suggest that they dropped h's "all over the place", I would assume neither speaks any sort of Cockney accent (certainly not the American).

What you are describing is a pattern found in a number of dialects, including some typical in the Southern United States. But usually these American accents did not develop this practice on their own; they simply continued what they brought from the British Isles. For instance, there is an Appalachian dialect of Scottish origin that drops these particular h's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English_regional_differences#South
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_American_English#Midland_.26_Highland


In fact, EVERY dialect of English drops some h's, it's just a question of (h)ow much or where it (h)appens.
For a general discussion of this practice see:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1545392


A lot of this confusion you can blame on the French, since it was French words that got it all started. A whole group of words beginning with h that came into Middle Englishfrom Old French via the Norman Conquest were words that kept (or restored) their old Latin spelling, butin which in Vulgar Latin the h had long before become silent. (Other Romance languages, more helpfully, simply dropped the h in the spelling too!)

At the same time, for words beginning with h that were 'originally English' (that is Germanic/Old Englsh/Anglo Saxon) the h was pronounced.

Over time the French practice (of the Norman aristocrats!) was, in some English dialects, spread to many words, even those in which the h had never been silent. The most extreme case of this is an accent like the Cockney.

Quite a few of these originally French words are STILL handled this way across all dialects of Modern English, such as honest, hono(ur).

Then there are words of French origin which retain their original silent h in SOME dialects of English, but have seen it "added back" in others. For instance, American English pronounces "herb" as having a silent H --which is how English in general still pronounced the word in the colonial period. But in Britain this changed in the 19th century.

Incidentally, this all explains why some still say "an historical event" -- since the English word "history" and its relatives originally had silent h, based on the French word "histoire"

What seems to have happened is that there was, in the 18th to 19th centuries, some confusion about which words had silent h (that is, which were originally French?), perhaps all the more so because OTHER words borrowed from OLD Latin into English (usually by scholarly writers) DID pronounce the h. Dropping h's in the wrong places came to be considered lower class --even, over time, in words where they had historically been silent.

(Some have suggested that h-dropping was favored under monarchs of French background, but when new rulers of German background came to the throne, this was reversed. I'm not sure whether there is solid historical evidence for this, though on the surface it is appealing.)

We know a bit about this development in the late 18th century from books written to try to teach people to speak with the 'standard' London accent (soon to become the "Received Pronunciation"). A book which makes a nice study of one of these books and compares it with others, which happens to discuss this specific question of silent vs. spoken h's is Joan Beal's *TITLE: English Pronunciation in the Eighteenth Century: Thomas Spence's 'Grand Repository of the English Language*, overviewed here:
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0408d&L=linguist&P=4562

At any rate, silent h in words like human, humble and hotel is actually consistent with the French roots of these words -- that is, these are words in which many dialects "restored" the h, while others simply kept the old practice.

Answer 2

Cockney (East London) and Yorkshire are native speaker accents in England which both tend to drop the "h" at the start of words.

They would often pronounce "house" as "-ouse", for example.

Also, French speakers do this a lot when they speak English.

Spanish is different - their "h" in English (when pronounced incorrectly) tends to be a guttaral sound (as in the end of loch in Scottish English).

Answer 3

If you're trying ot learn English then do not copy this trend. Cockneys do this which is acceptable because that's how they speak. In others it's just laziness. They drop the H and the T. Water becomes WA-ER, HATE becomes, ATE and so on. All word with H or T when dropped, change the sound of the word completely. Fascinating hearing cockneys. But in others, like I said, it's laziness.

Answer 4

French

Answer 5

French dont pronounce H

Answer 6

How Do You Pronounce H

Answer 7

This is a French accent! My French friend wanted to say, "He showed her his happiness". Instead he said to us, " E showed Er he's a penis.

We all roared with laughter until we could explain why we were laughing.

OHHH People from New York? They always pronounce H. I'm afraid your friend and your English teacher just have a "speech impediment". This is a rare occurence. NOT a regional accent.

Answer 8

im not sure about regions in the united states, but i know the french language does not pronounce the letter H.

Answer 9

1

Answer 10

I had a history professor last semester that did the same thing! It drove me crazy, even though I knew she couldn't help it. I think it's from some area of Ohio or that region, but I'm really not sure.