Talk:Phonological history of wh

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[edit] Other Germanic languages

It might be interesting to look at the history of this cluster in other Germanic languages. Here's what I know, or think I know, anyhow:

• German - merged with /v/ (in all dialects?)
• Dutch - same as in German?
• Swedish - merged with /v/
• Danish - merged with /v/ in most dialects, retained (as [hw]) in Northern-Jutland (and now dying?)
• Icelandic - merged with /kv/ in most dialects, retained (as [x^w]) in one dialect. Now dying, despite having been a bit of a prestige dialect in some contexts.
• Faroese - merged with /kv/ in all dialects
• Norwegian - merged with /kv/ in some dialects, merged with /v/ in other dialects

Looks like this cluster got into trouble everywhere. Haukur (talk) 22:51, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oldest pronunciation

“The pronunciation of this digraph as /ʍ/ is historically the oldest” I'm slightly in doubt, because as far as I know, ‘wh’ (or old ‘hw’ respectively) derives from PIE *k^w, shifted to *x^w and later to h^w/hw. Maybe contemporary /hw/ is a re-invention? --FAeR (talk) 03:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Why would it be a re-invention? Contemporary /hw/ is an uninterrupted continuation of Old English /hw/. In the dialects of Scots where /hw/ turned to /kw/ (reflected in spellings like quhat for what), you could say it's a "re-invention" of the pre-Grimm's Law PIE /k^w/. —Angr 04:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)