HWAT IS RIGHT | 2006-07-24
Sometime ago I expressed puzzlement over the fact that "I" is capitalized in English. Budarick, being Budarick, has put "i" in small letters ever since. I get a kick out of this.
I simply cannot spell that as anything but "htat." That is just how my fingers hit the keys. But that leads me to the realization that I keep spelling "what" as "hwat." It occurs to me that that is the way it is pronounced. Even the most fluent of people whose native language is not English have trouble with pronouncing "Whitaker." It looks like it should be pronounced W--HITAKER. That is hard to say when you are speaking quickly.
Whitaker, of course, is pronounced hwitikker, just as what is pronounced hwat.
If anybody cares about the technical side, the reason for this is that the original Saxon had a lot of gutterals, like the ch in "loch." When you see gh in light, it is because it used to be pronounced li(gutteral)t. In German it is Licht because German has changed the gutteral to ch.
Whitaker and what used to be what were originally pronounced )utteral) ittiker and (gutteral) at. If you make the gutteral, you will find your lips start with a w or u shape.
So what is right? Hwat is right.