Pronunciation of which

A friend forwarded me the link to your site (I am a choral director who teaches IPA and diction in some of my classes). I look forward to exploring it further over the summer. I have a question for you and will try to present it clearly without being able to use IPA. (I copied some IPA from your site but the "sh" symbol did not forward well.)

I was taught the pronunciation of "which" is [hwItS] and you list the pronunciation as [wItS]. At least for singers, we need to be able to distinguish between the pronunciations of "which" and "witch." In the words of the old tongue-twister, "Which witch is which?" [hwItS witS Iz hwItS]

A more encompassing question would be to ask if your site is primarily concerned with describing how words are commonly pronounced or describing their correct pronunciation. (As you know, these are not always the same thing.)

Thank you.

I dunno how to write it in that fancy pronounciation but for me the difference between the pronounciation of those two words is very subtle. In which the tone of the voice goes up and in witch it goes down.

(Before we go further, what you write as [hw] is commonly actually [W] in dialects which actually distinguish it with [w].)

The matter is that there has been a merger in *most* English dialects such that historical /w/ and /W/ (generally marked by orthographic <w> and <wh> respectively) have merged to just /w/. Consequently, word pairs that were formerly distinguished by them are now pronounced the same in most English dialects, such as "which" and "witch" or "whales" and "Wales".

>>I think of British "proper" English as the one most likely to pronounce the 'h' after 'w'.<<

This might seem weird, but actually the distinction between /w/ and /W/ has survived much better in North American English than in English English, where the distinction is all but extinct outside of conservative RP. The only dialect groups in which this distinction is consistently found across the board are Scottish English and Irish English (Dublin aside).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whine-wine_merger

Some North American dialects retain the "which-witch" distinction naturally, while some people. An easy way to tell if someone has it as a natural part of their native speech or if it's more learned is if it's pronounced [hw] or [W]. [W] is generally the natural one and [hw] is more learned. This is probably because if you didn't grow up having [W] it's (relatively) difficult to produce a voiceless [w] (which is what [W] is) without first adding an [h]. Also, if it's a natural part of your dialect you won't really have to think about when to use [W] so it'll occur pretty reliably whereas all but the most careful of people who've learned the distinction only do it part of the time as it's not how they grew up speaking.

I am "whine-wine" merged and find [W] pretty difficult to produce but [hw] is not for me at all if I try and do it (this is theoretical---I don't ever use [hw] in speech except maybe when I'm playing Boggle and I'm listing off my words--if I want to make it unambiguous I may consciously use [hw]).

There are various areas in the US and Canada which have preserved the [W]/[w] distinction. I know some of these areas may be found in parts of the South and Midwest. Last week I went to a talk by the famous writer Maya Angelou (who grew up at least partly in the South) and she clearly had [W] for most instances of orthographical 'wh'. I remember having a professor a couple of years ago from Tennessee who also reliably had [W] for 'wh' words.

Interestingly, the [W]/[w] distinction is very old as far as Germanic languages go and it may be traced directly back to Proto Germanic and Proto Indo European. While most modern Germanic languages have neutralized the distinction (at least in the spoken language) some retain a spelling distinction and some like English even have varieties which maintain the millennia-old distinction. Compare the following words in various modern Germanic languages:

Proto Germanic: *khwaitijaz
Modern English: wheat [Wi(:)t] or [wi(:)t]
Modern German: Weizen ["v\aIts@n]
Modern Norwegian (Nynorsk): kveite ["kv_0ejt_he:]
Modern Norwegian (Bokmål): hveite ["vejt_he:]
Modern Icelandic: hveiti ["xv_0ejti:] or ["kv_0ejti:]

Proto Germanic: *wedran
Modern English: weather ["wE:D@`]
Modern German: Wetter ["v\Et_h6]
Modern Norwegian: (Nynorsk): vêr [vEr] (not sure about the vowel)
Modern Norwegian: (Bokmål): vær [v{r]
Modern Icelandic: veður ["ve:DYr]

My mother was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota by Southern parents, and she maintains the which/witch distinction (although she otherwise speaks with a North Central accent). My siblings and I have not picked up on this, and merge which and witch.

If you are still with us, Ronald, I think that to a linguist (and I should mention that I am but a budding one myself) there is no such thing as "correct" pronunciation--every pronunciation is valid and, indeed, the more unique a pronunciation, the more interesting it is to study.

I am in the choir in my University here in Minnesota, and my choral director has struggles with our pronunciation of English that I'm sure would seem quite quaint to some. For example, many of our singers have no distinction between the words "cot" and "caught." My personal favorite (and one that arises quite frequently) is the merger of "are" and "our."

To be honest with you, and in my humble opinion, those that seek to "standardize" pronunciation (actors, musicians, etc.) are doing us all a disservice. People should embrace their accent as something that makes them unique. Also, it doesn't hurt to remember your roots (pronounced to rhyme with foot, ;) )

<<If you are still with us, Ronald, I think that to a linguist (and I should mention that I am but a budding one myself) there is no such thing as "correct" pronunciation--every pronunciation is valid and, indeed, the more unique a pronunciation, the more interesting it is to study. >>

Very true. If it's a native usage it's not "incorrect" no matter what some prescriptivists say.

<<For example, many of our singers have no distinction between the words "cot" and "caught.">>

Yeah, that merger has been spreading. Most of English-speaking Canada and about 40-50% of the US (including me and some others on this board) merges those two. It's my understanding that those from Northern Minnesota generally pronounce them the same and that those from the Twin Cities generally maintain the distinction.

<<My personal favorite (and one that arises quite frequently) is the merger of "are" and "our." >>

That one is interesting altho it's not really a merger so much as vowel leveling occurring in a common function word (this also happens in British English). If it were a true merger of /aUr\/ -> [Ar\] we'd also expect "hour" or "sour" to have [Ar\] but that's not the case (at least not with any dialects I'm familiar with).

<<If it were a true merger of /aUr\/ -> [Ar\] we'd also expect "hour" or "sour" to have [Ar\] but that's not the case (at least not with any dialects I'm familiar with).>>

Thanks for the clarification, Kirk. No, hour and sour are not pronounced with [Ar\].