Ah, reality sets in. Here is the second "daily" nugget (the first one having occurred three days ago.... ::sigh::)
When I was teaching my kids phonics, I had a bit of a difficult time explaining the “wh” sound. I mean, I “get” that it has an “h” sound in it, and a “w” sound, but it always sounded more “hw” than “wh” when I pronounced it and explained it. My daughter actually said to me that it ought to be spelled “hw”, but I didn’t know what to tell her.
This week I learned that in Old English, it WAS spelled “hw”. Sometime, when English was transitioning, “hw” was changed to “wh”, but the sound remained the same.
So, hwen English went from Old to New, some things were changed hwich affect our spelling. Let’s try to remember that hwen we are correcting our childrens’ spelling tests next time! J
No comments :
Post a Comment