Q is for WHAT, WHEN, WHERE?: The ‘q’ spellings for OE hw-

Abstract

There is a wide array of spellings attested in Middle English for initial OE hw- in words such as when, where, what, who, which. Those beginning with ‘q’, found mostly in the North (including Scotland) and Northeast Midlands, have long been the subject of scholarly debate. The consensus is that they represented an articulation stronger than [hw], usually assumed to be [xw]. Just a handful of scholars have suggested that the articulation could have been [kw], but there is so far little detailed argument for this position. We propose that at least a subset of reflexes of OE hw- words came at least variably to be pronounced with initial [kw]. We suggest that this strengthened pronunciation existed alongside [xw], and lenited [hw] and [w], as well as simple [h] with the [w] deleted. We link (as some other scholars have) the history of these spellings with that of northern lenition of original initial [kw] to [xw]/[hw]/[w]. We approach the problem from a strongly variationist perspective, presenting (in accompanying appendices) detailed information on the ‘q’ spellings accessible from LAEME and eLALME. We review all the data, from the earliest attested forms through to modern dialect surveys, including place-name evidence, and we assess previous arguments on the topic.

The <quh->–<wh-> switch: an empirical account of the anglicisation of a Scots variant in Scotland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

“…This runs contrary to earlier research, which has stressed that spoken language was the last to anglicise (MacQueen 1957; Aitken 1979, 1997; Beal 1997). Whilst this result may be suggestive of the changing times in Scots speech, and the underlying phonological processes that affected this variant in Middle English (Lass & Laing 2016), it seems unlikely these processes alone can explain the high levels of <wh-> that occurred so rapidly after the Union. Instead, the result we see here is more likely the result of scribal tendencies, though there may have been influence from sound changes that were already underway at this point.…”

“…Using AntConc (Anthony 2015, version 3.5.0) to search the HCOS text files, the clusters <qu->, <quh->, <qw->, <qwh-> and <wh-> <vh-> and <hw> were included in the search string. We included all the more common variants of ‘qu’ and ‘wh’ to incorporate a wider range of variation, given that orthographic practices were variable at the time (and phonological changes were also taking place, see Lass & Laing 2016). The vast majority of tokens were <quh-> and <wh-> with very few hits for the remaining clusters (38 tokens altogether).…”

“…<quh-> has been included in many studies, no doubt due to its emblematic nature as a Scots variant that underwent clear and unambiguous anglicisation. However, Lass & Laing (2016) and Laing & Lass (forthcoming) have identified the various spelling variants of ‘qu’ occurring in Early and Late Middle English, and Kniezsa (1997) has noted that <quh-> was the usual spelling for the extreme north of England as well 2 . Nonetheless, it seems <quh-> was vastly preferred for Older and Middle Scots, unlike Old and Middle English (Lass & Laing 2016).…”

“…Kniezsa (1997) has identified the counties of Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Westmoreland and North Riding as similarly using this variant, with the exception of York. <qu> as a variant only became regular in English from the thirteeenth century onwards(Blake 1992), and is thought to represent [kw]initial words of Germanic origin(Lass & Laing 2016). <qu-> had, however, become a minor spelling variant by the fifteenth century.…”