w and wh

In most accents of English, including RP, most* words spelled 'wh-' are pronounced as if they were simply spelled 'w-'. Thus whale and wail are homophones (pronounced exactly the same), as are which and witch, were and whirr, whine and wine, wheel and weal:

A few accents retain the old unvoiced w in wh- words, however - in many parts of Scotland and Ireland, and sporadically in North America, these word-pairs are not homophones, and 'wh-' is unvoiced. This can be written

. Some writers use a reversed w:

or:

*In words spelled 'who-', on the other hand, it is the w which is dropped in all accents of English:

who, whom, whose

and pairs of word such as whole-hole and whoop-hoop are homophones:

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If you have any questions mail me at peturk@hi.is.