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The digraph 'wh' is used to express a phoneme:

★ In the English language, (voiceless labial-velar fricative) the continuation of the PIE labiovelar (formerly spelled ''hw''). Notably interrogative words begin with this phoneme, whence they are also known as '''wh-words'''. However, this digraph has usually come to be pronounced as when followed by the letter 'o', as in "''who''" or "''whole''". The phoneme is lost in most varieties of English, see ''wine-whine'' merger.

★ In the Māori language, it represents // or /f/, with some regional variations approaching /h/ or //. In the Taranaki region, some speakers pronounce it as a glottalized /w/. The /f/ pronunciation is very common, perhaps due to influence from English.

★ In the Xhosa language, it represents //, a murmured variant of /w/. It is found in loans.

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See also

See also

★ Hwair