What, Who, and Why - Why Pronouncing /hw/ is Superior Among Educated Peoples

The wine-whine merger in the United States.

The area marked in purple is where preservation of the contrast is strongest. In other areas the merger predominates, though sporadic instances of contrast preservation are found throughout the country. Based on www.ling.upenn.edu and the map at Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 50).[1]

The wine-whine merger is a merger by which voiceless /hw/ is reduced to voiced /w/. It has occurred historically in the dialects of the great majority of English speakers. The resulting /w/ is generally pronounced [w], but sometimes [hw̥]; this may be hypercorrection.

The merger is essentially complete in England, Wales, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and is widespread in the United States and Canada. In accents with the merger, pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, weather/whether, wail/whale, Wales/whales, wear/where, witch/which etc. are homophonous. The merger is not found in Scotland, Ireland (except in the popular speech of Dublin, although the merger is now spreading more widely), and parts of the U.S. and Canada. The merger is not usually stigmatized except occasionally by very speech-conscious people, and for humorous purposes (e.g. the TV show Family Guy has a recurring joke about non-merged speech]]).

According to Labov, Ash, and Boberg (2006: 49)[1], while there are regions of the U.S. (particularly in the Southeast) where speakers keeping the distinction are about as numerous as those having the merger, there are no regions where the preservation of the distinction is predominant (see map). Throughout the U.S. and Canada, about 83% of respondents in the survey had the merger completely, while about 17% preserved at least some trace of the distinction.

The wine-whine merger, although apparently present in the south of England as early as the 13th century,[2] did not become acceptable in educated speech until the late 18th century. While some RP speakers still use /hw/, most accents of England, Wales, West Indies and the southern hemisphere have only /w/.