1164: Double U; Double Approximate Feb 15, 2018

What sound does W make? Even the more scientific question: "what sound does [w] or [ʍ] make?" may appear rather pedantic or even silly, but it actually lends itself to phonological and orthographic insights. First off, the question is a bit of a trick; while any native speakers of English would be able to pronounce the phoneme, it is considered a doubly articulated consonant. That is to say, while other sounds are pronounced in one part of the vocal tract, such as [b] being produced by a closure of the lips, [w] is produced by  at the lips, just like [b], but is also velar, such as [k], but it is not exactly like either. Other languages have dealt with this in a few ways. For instance, 'west' in French is 'ouest'; the French doesn't use [w] the same way of course, but it does show how a clearly closely related word has been recognized to be pronounced with a closure (or at least partial closure) of the lips, which happens when the lips round to pronounce [o] and then the way the tongue moves back to pronounce [u], or indeed other velar sounds like [k]. The fact that it is called "double-U" is quite fitting therefore, since while it is not the same as actually having two U's in terms of pronunciation, at least it coincidentally acknowledges that there are two ways this is pronounced at the same time.
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