Lots of British English speakersnever pronounce /h/, others pronounce it sometimes, but nobody pronounces it all the time, in other words, it’s a grey area.
So what is H? When is itsilent? Is the letter ‘Haitch’ or ‘Aitch‘? Oh, and do we really need it, onestly?
/h/
If you’re going to pronounce H, imagine you are steaming up a mirror /h/. It’s a voiceless fricative in the throat, it isn’t made in the mouth /x/ or on the lips /ɸ/. Altogether now: “Harry has hairy hands”.
Silent H
H is always silent inHONOUR, HOUR, HONEST, HEIR, VEHICLE & VEHEMENT.You don’t say it after ‘g’ in GHOST, GHASTLY, AGHAST, GHERKIN & GHETTO, or after ‘r’ in RHINOCEROS, RHUBARB, RHYMEand RHYTHM. It’s normally silent after‘w’: WHAT? WHICH? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? but it’s pronounced inWHO?– “Who’d have thought it?”. And we don’t always say it after ‘ex’ – which is eitherEXHILARATING… or EXHAUSTING.
Weak H
The weak function words: HE, HIM, HIS, HER, HAVE, HAD & HASall tend to lose the H ifthe word doesn’t appear at the beginning.So say Hin “He’s ok”, but not in “Is he really?”. Pronounceit in “Have you finished”, but not in “You must have done”.
H Droppers
Many British Englishspeakersnever, ever say /h/; so they pronounce ‘hill’ and ‘ill’ identically – /ɪl/. These speakers are known as ‘H Droppers’ and it’s a clear feature of most regional British accents – London included, altogether now: “Harry has hairy hands”.
a/an + H
The rule goes that the article ‘a’ is used before a consonant and ‘an’is used before a vowel, so with silent H we would say “an honest” and with pronounced H we would say “a hotel”. But some posher speakers tend to treat a pronounced H as if it were not there, so they would say “an historic” and “an hotel”. H droppers tend to always use ‘an’, so co*ckneys would say “Give us an (h)and” and “She’s renting an (h)ouse”.
HAITCH or AITCH?
The pronunciation of the letter itself is unclear, should it be /heɪtʃ/ or /eɪtʃ/? The standard or ‘correct’ version in GB is /eɪtʃ/, and this is the pronunciation the BBC recommends to its broadcasters as being “less likely to attract audience complaints.” The reality is that both pronunciations are commonly used and some native speakers will switch between both.
TH, GH, SH, PH
The sound /h/ is always spelt with an H. But that’s not the only time we see it in English. It combines with ’t’ to make the two dental fricatives /θ/ in THINK and /ð/ in THIS. It combines with ’s’ to make /ʃ/ in SHAME, POSH & FASHION, and with c to make /tʃ/ in CHIMNEY & WATCH. ‘ph’ is normally pronounced /f/ like in PHENOMENAL & ELEPHANT, but not in SHEPHERD. Sometimes ‘gh’ is also /f/at the end of a syllable ENOUGH! butit’s more likely to be silent – WEIGH, THIGH, THROUGH, THOROUGH & BOROUGH. Oh andlet’s not forget the /p/ in HICCOUGH.
American vs British
Some famous differences between GB English and its American counterpart involveH. In GB we have SCHEDULES with a /ʃ/, but in America they are /ˈskedʒəlz/.GBcooks like the H inHERBS,whereas they prefer /ˈɜːrbz/ across the pond.
Do we really need /h/?
Most Latin based languages have got rid of /h/ – you won’t find one in Spanish, French or Italian to name a few, and there has been an ongoing debate for centuriesas to whether we need the sound at all in English. When you consider words like ‘hospital’ dropped their /h/ to /ˈɒspɪtəl/, then got it back again, and the fact it simply doesn’t exist in most regional accents, youmay wonder whether /h/ is just a fashion accessory bandied around by elocutionists elusively seeking ‘correctness’.
What do you think? Vote in our Twitter poll:
Do we need /h/ in English pronunciation? https://t.co/p8D4K7sdGX
— Pronunciation Studio (@45sounds) September 28, 2016
