Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by arghwhat 999 days ago
In many other languages, w is pronounced like a v and in some cases even named "double vee".

> e.g. say this sentence "uorld uar tuo uas the uorst"

This doesn't work with the English pronunciations of the letter u from words like "uninteresting" or "mumble". It mostly seems to work with the pronunciation of "you", which does not naturally fit those letter placements.

Not knowing the proper linguistic terms, I'd consider "w" to be a modulation of a another sounding vowel by closing your lips and pressing your tongue a bit down to make room. Without a vowel to modulate, there is no sound, and so "mwmbl" is a bit of a question mark.

But most words require prior knowledge to pronounce correctly, especially in as messy a language as English.