Mastodawn

Something I was wondering about this morning: native English speakers, do you pronounce initial [wh] and initial [w] differently? I.e., is there a difference in the way you pronounce 'which' and 'witch' or 'whether' and 'weather'?

Please boost for reach.

Yes

27.4%

No

67.9%

Huh?

4.8%

Poll ended at Feb 28 at 12:15pm.

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Gillinger Feb 25

@joyce
Not here in the north of England! I have heard older RP (Received Pronunciation, the Queen's English or early BBC-speak) give a very slight extra emphasis (almost like a very faint whistling sound) on "wh" but I suspect that's all but died out.

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DamonHD

@Gillinger @joyce I'm a fairly posh RP speaker, albeit with some Yorkshire influences, who was hauled up in front of my uni linguistics class decades ago to demonstrate most of the IPA vowel chart to incredulous Scots for example, and do not make that distinction.