WH.
Our attention may now advert to the perfect digraph WH.
Alexander Gill, a contemporary of Shakespeare, and Head Master of St Paul’s Schools, wrote, “W, aspiratum, consona est, quam scribunt per wh, et tamen aspiratio præcedit.” (W, aspirated, is a consonant which is written wh, and yet the Aspirate precedes it.) Dr Lowth (1710–1787), Bishop of London, is quoted by Mr Walker as having directed that WH should be pronounced “HW,” this having been the relative positions of the letters during the Anglo-Saxon period. The erudite theory of the great Hebrew and Saxon scholar had a fascination for the theoretical orthoepist of whom Mr Cull, F.S.A., the learned editor of Ogilvie’s Dictionary, writes:—
Mr Walker did not profess to record the current pronunciation of his day, but he sought to establish principles and even rules to govern the pronunciation; and would change the pronunciation of words to bring them within his rules.
It is probable that Dr Lowth, who, practically, is the responsible author of this theory of inversion, was led to his conclusions as much by his belief that W was a vowel as by the historical considerations alluded to above. As regards W being always a vowel, Dr Lowth’s argument was successfully refuted by Walker himself, whose statements in this respect, Posterity has endorsed. W is a vowel only when forming the latter half of a diphthong. And, moreover, even if the W were a vowel, Dr Lowth could have shewn no good reason for inverting the order of letters in pronouncing the digraph WH. The retrospective influence of a post-aspirate has no power to produce a breathing on a vowel, or on a consonant; but generally to cause a vowel to terminate in a jerked breath (h‘) or a consonant to become unvocalised. And again; that Anglo-Saxon writers had been wont to twist H round to the fore, was an irrelevant fact, and one that ought to have had no weight with the worthy bishop or with Mr John Walker when engaged in dictating laws of pronunciation to the English lieges of King George III. When Walker wrote the following sentence concerning Dr Johnson, he was in truth constructing a formula for his own epitaph:—
His Dictionary has been deemed lawful plunder for every subsequent lexicographer; and so servilely has he been copied, that his mistakes re-appear in several other dictionaries.
And so it is that Mr Walker’s second-hand rule with regard to WH has retained the implicit allegiance of all his successors who have had pronouncing dictionaries to compile. In the presence of such massive authority, to speak is to be silenced, and to differ is to be crushed. But still, as is seen in many things, the most imposing and august array of venerable doctrine cannot always stifle the “still small voice” of a contrary conviction. Who shall say that Dr Primrose had not been looking over a collection of pronouncing dictionaries, when he remarked that, as ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to the untrue.
A purpose of this treatise is to respectfully solicit of modern authorities a reconsideration of the doctrine of transposition or dictum relative to the WH; and at the same time to lay certain data before the general reader.
Clear notions concerning the ordinary W are necessary to a proper appreciation of that variety occurring in WH.
The vowel-W is simply oo; thus, in pew, “ew” is a diphthong and equal in sound to ēoo.
The consonant-W is a buzzed oo plus a rapid transition into the sound that succeeds it. Let
represent the buzzed oo, and ❨ the rapid transition:
W = (
❨).
If, while pronouncing oo, we narrow the labial aperture by approximating the edges of the upper and lower lips, the sound
is produced. If, while producing the sound
, we enlarge the labial aperture with sudden rapidity (❨), a perfect consonant-W results. Thus:
“we” =
❨ē; and, “woo” =
❨oo.
Let WH be represented by ʍ. The difference between W and ʍ is that W is produced by vocalised breath and certain lip-movements as described above; whereas ʍ is produced by the same lip-movements, but with unvocalised breath. Hence, in lieu of the buzzing sound, we find in ʍ a whispered or “whistled breath.” It is this breath-sound of ʍ which has been so persistently mistaken for the Aspirate H. The sole office of the H in this digraph is to prescribe the unvocalization of the W. The nature of the subject renders it difficult to parade proofs of these facts on the pages of a book, in order to convince persons who, having a veneration for Mr Walker’s hoo hoo theory, might wish to uphold in theory that which they probably depart from in practice. By careful attention to most thoroughly good speakers it will be noticed that an unvocalised W (ʍ) is the phonic rendering of the digraph WH; although the “whistled breath” may be mistaken for an Aspirate by a careless observer, or by one resolute in error.
It is not easy to understand why these facts are not more widely recognised and insisted upon by modern orthoepists and writers on phonological science; and it is very difficult to attribute a cause to the longevity of the erroneous notions that Mr Walker was an early means of disseminating. When we see in our pronouncing dictionaries that whip is to be pronounced “hwip,” the only belief open to us is that their writers intend two vowel-sounds to be heard in a word containing only one vowel; for they can scarcely mean that the h shall aspirate a consonantal w, nor that a jerked h‘ shall precede the word (thus h‘ + wip), nor can they desire that the h shall aspirate a whistle—Hʍip. To say the least, the rendering of any of these would require a vocal gymnast to make it effective. But if two vowels are to be employed, the first must needs be aspirated and the second not; so that a phonetic spelling of whip and why would be “hoo ip” and “hoo i”! And, according to Mr Walker and his disciples, this is the correct pronunciation. But the fact remains that even those gentlemen, who in their dictionaries have scrupulously reproduced Mr Walker’s rule, have seldom been known to violate the principles of a correct pronunciation by adhering to it when speaking. The sore straits to which the rule occasionally reduces them might elicit pity. “Hw” is found to be unmanageable before o; and therefore we find that since the days of Mr Walker, a perfect unanimity has prevailed among orthoepists with regard to the extrusion of W from the pronunciation of every word in which the digraph WH precedes an o; whence it comes that in all dictionaries in common use, whole, whom, who, &c., are phonetically expressed “hole,” “hoom,” “hoo,” &c.; for, according to their method, to retain the W were to give these words the sound of hoo ole, hoo oom, and hoo oo! If, on the other hand, one remembers that WH is an unvocalized W, no more hesitation will be experienced in giving it its due before an o than before any other vowel. ʍole, ʍoom, and ʍoo, are quite as easy to pronounce as ʍist ʍip, or ʍale. Who is, however, very frequently made an exception by the best speakers of English, and pronounced “hoo.” The word lost its ʍ in the seventeenth century, and does not seem in a fair way to recover it.
Mr Ellis, so far as the writer is aware, is the only authority who has entered a protest against the modern conception of WH; and he gives it as his opinion that, from the earliest times, WH—whether mistaken for Hw or Hoo—has always been and still is, if rightly pronounced, WH.
This digraph is peculiar to the English language. English-speaking people differ in their manner of using it. In the south of England, it is seldom more than W; and which and what are pronounced “wich” and “wot.” The educated classes must, by courtesy, be supposed without the pale of this accusation. In the northern parts of England WH is decidedly more correctly used; in Scotland the pronunciation of it is perfect. In few cases would it be other than absurd to seek, out of England, for a criterion of English pronunciation; but this is one of the exceptions wherein the norm is best found north of the Tweed. Scotch H’s are harsh and grating, or like the H of HU (see page [37]), or akin to the results of those guttural spasms that attend the primiparous aspirate-labours of a reformed H-dropper; and the Scotch are known to wrongfully accuse Englishmen of dropping H’s, that in reality have been properly aspirated; but the Scotch neither exaggerate nor neglect the proper rendering of WH, and even their farm-labourers are worthy to be taken as models.[[13]] Whale, whelp, when, where, whole, are, in Scotland, distinctly and properly, ʍale, ʍelp, ʍen, ʍere, and ʍole. Notwithstanding this indisputable fact, the four varieties of Ogilvie’s excellent dictionary (the northern Scotchman’s lexical fetish) give “hwale,” “hwen,” &c., as being the received pronunciation. In so doing they agree with all contemporary productions of their kind. The rationale of the inversion is a mystery; but a clue to the cause of this and other errors-upon-precedent, would very probably be found to have Mr John Walker at one end of it and the conservative spirit of subsequent orthoepists at the other.