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First of all I'm not confused about how this letter is pronounced. I've been taught it's the former pronunciation all along and none of the dictionaries recognise the latter. But I observed there has been an increasing surge of people, many YouTubers included, that adopted the /heɪtʃ/ pronunciation, which vexed me to no end. I even saw some teachers of English pronounced the letter like that, which is alarming to say the least.
Some do! Some don't. I said these words to myself just now to see what I do, and wouldn't you know it, I do put a teensy tiny "h" in front of these. Kind of like "hWat?" It's barely discernable, even to me.
Amazing to learn after all these years that I pronounce some words in a way I would never have imagined. Wow! Or is that hWow?
I'm originally from Southern California, and probably had an original "O.C" accent, but since age 15 I've been all over: Toronto, Canada; Cheltenham, England; Germany for 3 years and Yes I speak it fairly fluently; Washington state, USA, for the past 30 years. My accent is probably so muddled up by now there's no way to tell what I sound like.
First of all, I wish to remind that the letter "H" is more acceptably pronounced "age" or "eij" not "heige"/"heij".
There, the pronunciation of "H" itself does not involve the sound of "H. I've been to parts of Asia and US where they pronounced it "heige" - somewhat coincident in places where they also pronounce "pronounciation" rather than "pronunciation".
The way I've been brought up, which may not agree with others
Elision of h to before w to emphasize the presence of an "h". Therefore we pronounce "hwen", "hwat",etc.
In the US, people pronounce "herb" as "erb", "homage" as "omage"/"ormarj". I think the Queen of England would not coincide with such pronunciation. Neither does the Oxford dict. I am more comfortable pronouncing them with the non-silent "H". I think US pronunciation standardization efforts are simply too zealous.
Regardless of dialect, the "H" mostly becomes silent when paired with a prior word that ends with a consonant:
green herb = green'erbHowever, if the prior word ends with "T", I would encourage people to pronounce "herb" rather than "erb". e.g, "fragrant herb" rather than "fragrant 'erb". Could be misheard as "fragrant turd".
Regardless of dialect, the elided "H" in "when", "where", etc, is not silent, even when paired with a prior word ending with a consonant. e.g.
- he says hwen
- tell him hwere