h-dropping

[Dana]

Do you have a tendency to drop an 'h' in the beginng of words?

[Тхоломео]

No.
What did you mean??? I don't have even a slightest idea

[Drunkie]

'Aving been around Yorkshiremen for several years, I 'ave acquired the 'abit of  dropping the initial 'h' quite often.
It is a habit that's common among British people, particularly in Central and Northern England and generally among the not-very-educated type.

[Rezia]

...among the not-very-educated type.

Well, maybe it's somehow different in modern English (though hardly), omission of [h] sound always considered a vulgarism. William Thackeray (English classics) once wrote in his novel that it's impossible for a gentleman to marry a girl who "drops her h's". But it was rather long ago.
Russian linguist Polivanov writes in his course of lectures on phonetics that uneducated people usually drop theit h's , but sometimes they try to be proper in their language and they insert these  [h] sounds wherever they want. Then Polivanov gives such a nice joke:
A barber, while operating on a gentleman expresses his opinion , that after all, the cholera was in the hair. "Then", observes the customer, "you ought to be very careful what brushes you use". "Oh, sir", replies the barber laughing, "I didn't mean the air of the ed, but the hair of the hatmosphere."

[Drunkie]

Well, that's exactly what I wrote - h-dropping is normally characteristic of poorly educated English people. It's just that the men I work with are not fine-arts type or anything - they're plain engineers, and although their education is technically very good they can afford not to care whether they drop their h's or not.
And the joke is good, indeed

[Rezia]

And the joke is good, indeed

I wonder whether this h-dropping depends on the position of a word in a sentence. Do those acquaintances of yours always drop it regardless?

[Drunkie]

And the joke is good, indeed

I wonder whether this h-dropping depends on the position of a word in a sentence. Do those acquaintances of yours always drop it regardless?

No I can't say I have observed any usage pattern dependant upon the position of the word in the sentence. They just drop it regardless in most cases.

[andrewsiak]

I drop [h] only in "have".

[Rezia]

I drop [h] only in "have".

Well, it's a rule to drop "h" in collocation "should have" - "should have done", for emaple.

[andrewsiak]

I drop [h] only in "have".

Well, it's a rule to drop "h" in collocation "should have" - "should have done", for emaple.

I mean I drop it even in "we have an apple" and "I have a book".

[macabro]

you shoulda heard how I pronounce "he hates her"

[Jumis]

on the heels of the Americans, i got used to articulate [hwa(t)] in "what". as you see, i tended to add it

[RawonaM]

on the heels of the Americans, i got used to articulate [hwa(t)] in "what". as you see, i tended to add it

It is pronounced not as [hwat], but [ʍɔt]. [ʍ] is not [hw], it's just the voiceless counterpart to [w].

[Jumis]

It is pronounced not as [hwat], but [ʍɔt]. [ʍ] is not [hw], it's just the voiceless counterpart to [w].

for me, it would be funny to perceive it as a somewhat comeback to the PIE-root *kwi-d

[Peamur]

I am reading "Le Morte D'Arthur" now, and i've noticed that (almost) afore every word that begins with "h" there is an indefinite article "an". Does it mean for me, that I shouldn't pronounce this first "h" at all? For example Boox IX, chapter 4, the very beginning: "And anon there came an hundred knights about him and assailed him..."

or Book IX, chapter 2 :"and by sudden adventure there was an horrible lion kept in a strong tower of stone".

How shoud I read this?

[macabro]

Peamurdmisu:lesanne, exactly. An 'undred. I've seen the same thing in Swift's Gulliver. An horse etc. Actually the funniest thing is that I sometimes use such forms with an before a word which begins with H.

[Tony]

If you look at many other Germanic languages, you see that "a" is represented by words like "een", "eene", etc.
  So this "an" could be a remnant of the vanished gender system which you can still find in most Germanic languages.

Anwering the question: I don't think I drop the "h".

[Bridget Jones]

It sure depends on your dialect as well as on your level of education. In Pensylvania, for example, they drop h word-initially: (h)uge, (h)uman, (h)umor, etc.

cheers!

[andrewsiak]

It sure depends on your dialect as well as on your level of education. In Pensylvania, for example, they drop h word-initially: (h)uge, (h)uman, (h)umor, etc.

cheers!

This is not that " they drop h word-initially: (h)uge, (h)uman, (h)umor" as you put it. These examples show that they only drop [h] in front of [ju].

[Bridget Jones]

I wasn't explicit enough. They do drop h-s before other vowels too. At least the person I know does.

cheers

[iopq]

I only drop it before the words where I have to drop it like "hour".

[regn]

I drop "h" before unstressed vowels: for'im, for'er, tell'er.
So, in the word "behind" i tend to keep the "h".

After other pronouns ending with vowels, I make the "h" a bit weaker, but it is not fully dropped: "I have made" (the "h" soiund is weakened).

[Rezia]

There's h-dropping in American English - herb [erb].

[sknente]

I can't pronounce English at all... only write it. The few times I spoke over voice chat, they could barely understand me, and I had like .. 3 encounters with native speakers in my entire life. But when I do have to speak, the biggest difficulty for me is pronouncing all the vowels properly.. and all those vowel sequences... a simple phrase like "go away" is impossible for me. (I can pronounce it with a glottal stop before the "away", but that sounds robotic and totally not English-like.) So the /h/ is at least some consonant to cling to, in a treacherous sea of vowels. [h] is an awesome sound in general... the English [h] should be stronger... like in German.

Also, I gave up on the "ur" sound, I just say [ja:r] for "year", [ha:r] for "her". (and [ja] for "yeah". ) If it's a word like "bird", then I try to pronounce something like [beurd], kinda squishing the [e] and [u] together.

Anyway... I wish English phonetics were more "germanic".. like those of its remote relatives on the Continent.

[Vertaler]

Anyway... I wish English phonetics were more "germanic".. like those of its remote relatives on the Continent.

By the way, what do you think about the most phantastic phonetics among the Germanic language, I mean that of Frisian? Is it "Germanic", or not?