Are parts of Scotland the only places in Britain that pronounce 'w' and 'wh' differently ,or is it common in

Question

other places also?
Eg 'were' and 'where'.
'Wales' and 'whales'.

Answer 1

To "knownowt", as a Scot it always used to irritate me that the bird on the Playbus was called "Y" by the presenters when it's name was "Why". I therefore presume that some parts of England do not differentiate between "whether" and "weather" or "what" and "watt" to give a couple of examples.

I also pronounce "there" and "their" differently but have noticed that they seem to be pronounced the same in other parts of the country.

Answer 2

Decent question. Actually, the Scottish pronunciation was the original English pronunciation. The sound is what phoneticians call a devoiced labial-velar approximant. The IPA symbol is /ʍ/. It is the same as a normal /w/ only it is said as if there were a /h/ first. This is why is it sometimes written /hw/ when one does not have the /ʍ/ symbol.
In Middle English, the was pronounced like the modern Scottish way. There are also dialects of American English up around the Midwest that also have this (one of my linguistics professors for one).

This would show a difference between words like the ones you mention as well as others, (whine and wine, which and witch, whether and weather). That is actually why we have those spellings of . Even words like Whole and Who were originally pronounced that way. However, it pretty much died, maybe around the time of the Great Vowel Shift in the history of the English language.

Another thing is, in some words that have a by a devoiced sound, there may be a little devoicing. I've learned to start using the /ʍ/ and my friend always thought I was saying a /kw/ sound like in quiet, quick, or quit, so that leads me to think that it's really /kʍ/. I think in words like 'twas and 'twill might have a /ʍ/ as well.

If you want to learn how to say it, try the /h/ + /w/ approach.

Note: there were also other devoiced sounds in Middle English like a /hl/ sound (IPA /ɬ/) which was used then and isn't used now, but if you want to hear that devoiced sound ask a Welshmen to say a word in Welsh with a double L . This sound is also in Icelandic.

Answer 3

i'm from scotland and i don't pronounce them any differently to anyone else who speaks english and neither does anyone else i know!!!

were and where do sound differently but wales and whales always sound the same, weather and whether too, but its got nothing to do with whether you come from scotland or not as to how you pronounce w and wh!

Answer 4

The distinction is also maintained in parts of the eastern United States. But, you are right, this distinction is dying out. It is part of a 1000-year-long process that began with the loss of hn, hr, and hl from Old English (hnutu "nut", hlaf "loaf, bread", hræfn "raven") and involves the gradual loss of hw (modern wh).

Answer 5

They both sound exactly the same to my ears & I certainly don't pronounce them any differently. I'm Scottish BTW.

Answer 6

Apart from in Scotland, the differentiation between [w] and [hw] seems to have died, apart from among posh people.

Answer 7

'Wales' and ''whales are pronounced the same but 'were' and 'where' certainly aren't.
'Were' should be pronounced 'whirr' not 'wear'.

Answer 8

Not sure what you are getting at....were and where are pronounced differently everywhere because they are different words.