Re: Spelling pronunciations (was: rhotic miscellany)

Quoting John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> Andreas Johansson scripsit:
>
> > I probably noticed it due to my faux-archaic habit of adding a [h] in front
> of
> > Swedish question-words in 'v-'. They, of course, descend from the same IE
> kw
> > that gave English 'wh-' and Latin 'qu-'. Sometimes I even adopt the
> > pronunciation of certain northern dialects, which have [kv] here.
>
> Old English had [xw-], and though the majority of dialects now have [w-],
> some still have [hw-] or [W].  In Scots, [xw-] became [kw-] for a while,
> as shown by older Scots spellings like quha (who) and quhilk (which),
> (now written "wha" and "whilk").
I was of the impression that 'quh' itself indicated [xw], on analogy with 'ch' =
[x] and 'th' = [T]? Seems saner than using it for [kw], for which simply 'qu'
should immediate present itself.

                                                      Andreas

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