Why Oh Why?

I just emailed Dr. Kelli Sandman-Hurley to congratulate her on her impressive TED-Ed video on dyslexia, which I will certainly be using in upcoming classes and seminars. Kelli quickly responded, and indicated that she was in the midst of “looking for reasoning behind why some words as spelled with w and some with wh…”

I appreciated Kelli’s phrasing: she was looking for reasoning, trusting that English spelling is orderly, driven by meaning, and reasonable. I started to respond in an email, then decided the fruits of my brief investigation would be better shared with a wider audience.

Most words spelled with a <wh> are from Old English, where they were spelled with an <hw> digraph. They were actually pronounced /hw/ rather than the more common /ʍ/ (a voiceless /w/) that some folks have now. Most of us in the U.S. just say /w/, but some southerners and some non-U.S. speakers also devoice and/or aspirate the beginnings of words with <wh>, like Hank Hill from “King of the Hill” or Stewie from “Family Guy.” 

Many <wh> words are, of course, “question” words: who, what, where, when, why, which, whether, whose, whom, or otherwise grammatical/function words: wherefore, while, whence. These words often have Latinate cognates with <qu> (who/qui/quien, when/quando, what/quoi/que, which/quel/qual) — that’s because the <h> in <wh> and the <q> in <qu> both represent sounds made in the back of the mouth, and the  <u> and <w> both represent lip-rounding sounds. Similarly, whale is related to squalus and squalene, rorqual, and narwhal.

Several others have to do with a blow or blowing or brisk movement: whack, wham, whistle, whisper, whap, whop, wheal (also weal), wheedle (etymologically, to fan someone), whiff, whim, whimper, whine, whip, whippet, whirl, whorl, whisk, whiz, whump, whoosh, and even wharf (home to brisk activity).

Some are convenient spellings to have for homophones, like whet/wet and whit/wit and whole/hole. And we need that <wh> because it can also spell /h/ before the letter <o>, as in who or whole. Some <wh> words are related to other words that begin with <c>, because a <c> in Latin or Greek words and <h> in English words can be related — there’s that velar connection again — hearty/cordial/cardiac, horn/unicorn. Here are some more surprising relatives: whore/charity (both denote ‘loving’); wheel/cycle (both are round); whir/whirl/circle (all again denote roundness). A few others are simply marking relationships to other words — like the cognates white and wheat, or whine and whinge.

As Kelli knows, graphemes are driven by their etymology, not just by their phonology. So why are some words spelled with <wh>? Well, not only do <wh> words represent all possible pronunciations by English speakers, be they Canadians or Texans, New Englanders or old Englanders, they also whisper to us of ways our long-ago forebears perceived and spoke about their world.

13 Comments

  1. Dyslexia Training Institute says:

    Oh my! That was so fast and so awesome! Thank you!!! I am definitely a fan and post your articles on our facebook page all the time. You can see it at http://www.facebook.com/dyslexiatraining.

    Thank you again. Kelli

  2. Laura Given says:

    Love reading your posts, learning and expanding my knowledge base. Thank you.

  3. Old Grouch says:

    This post is firmly in the LEX ‘tradition: orthographic insight, enlightenment and celebratory clarity. Thank you.

    For me at the moment, it is the final paragraph that is most significant. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – arbitrary about our orthographic system; it has evolved, and continues to evolve, to represent English to its community and communities of speakers. There is a reason for and a source of everything.

    LEX’s clarion cry that “everyone knows that stories are made up of words, but words are also made up of stories” is seminal to understanding that an orthography is human thought – and experience – made visible as text. To this is now added the seminal and crucial fact that “graphemes [ ] whisper to us of ways our long-ago forebears perceived and spoke about their world”.

    In the current rewriting and reworking of the Tool Box’s Kit 5 we are working on Theme B entitled Celebrating the Letter ‘h’. This post could not have been more opportune! Is it really a coincidence that, at the very moment when this post about graphemes appears, we are working on a presentation of the story of the Greek-origin digraphs ‘ph’, ‘th’, and ‘ch’? Here, verbatim, is a comment that was inserted into the draft of the tutorial film draft just yesterday: “Just as all words have an etymology, so letters and graphemes also have their etymologies, as we have just been seeing.”

    The recently published Real Script resource also makes the point, and gives plenty of evidence for, the fact that each of our alphabetic letters has an etymology that is both conceptual and structural. It is simply not possible to properly understand script without a full understanding of the stories of its letters.

    As is written elsewhere in the LEX corpus, “The stories of words are the vestiges of where our forefathers and foremothers have been. They are the footprints of human thought and the human experience.”

  4. Deb Sensel-Davis says:

    Gina, I love you! And the English language! Thank you!

  5. Thank you for reading, everyone. And keep the questions coming. Each question I set about to find an answer to informs me of so much!

  6. peggy saunders says:

    Gina,
    Thanks for the detailed explanation. I have often wondered about the wh and now I won’t be at a loss to explain to my students using etymology. I am really working hard to get the teachers at my school to explore the origins of words with kids.

  7. Haya says:

    Thank you. A lot of knowledge packed in there! but is there a version for 9 year olds? or would that version be, “just memorize it”. Presently, I find myself verbalizing the silent “h” before “w” when dictating a spelling word. Though, I do this knowing his classroom teacher won’t speak like an englishwoman in order to accommodate a dyslexic student.

    • Thank you for your comments! I think the truth is good for 9-year-olds, and 9-year-olds love stories, even stories about words. I might leave out the part about whore, but discovering words spelled with wh that are related to ‘blow’ doesn’t have an age limit or an expiration date. I’m not convinced that speaking like an Englishwoman is an “accommodation” for a dyslexic American child — or why that’s a more appropriate solution than exploring word stories with 9-year-olds.

  8. Mary McBride says:

    The Old Grouch summed this up so well “…orthographic insight, enlightenment and celebratory clarity. Thank you.” This understanding will travel well to my reading students, gen. ed. students and teachers. Thanks for enlightening us, Gina.

  9. Ani Smith says:

    More fabulous information to add to the Orthography lessons I am planning for my new crop of 4th graders! Thanks Gina! 🙂

  10. Gina~ I heard your talk on the Dyslexia Institute site. It was fantastic. Just came to your site to look up to help one of my learners to understand is rather than *. Your post as the talk with Kelli are so clearly put and I look forward to sharing it this afternoon.

  11. Deb Geise says:

    Can’t wait to share my broadened understanding of with this post. Fascinating to learn of the cognates and relatives.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *