Do you pronounce ''world'' with one or two syllables?

=>Because English, unlike Dutch and most other European languages, is NOT a phonetic language.<=

Dutch isn't phonetic as well!

"You mean, how close English is to Dutch."

It's the same thing. If English is close to Dutch then Dutch is close to English. They are both members of the West Germanic family. Dutch is the most closely related big language to English.

Diutch was there before English,its not the same thing.

Pardon me for going off on a tangent, but I have a question for people who don't say "where," "when," "what" and "whale" with a "hw." Do you also say "whirl" like "wirl?" I am a hw-er, but I can pronounce all the words I cited with a plain "w" and not think it feels strange. But saying "wirl" feels very unnatural. I think there's something about the "hw" sound that sounds right for what "whirl" means.

In case you're wondering why I started talking about "whirl," the word was used in a post by Adam on the previous page.

"Diutch was there before English, "

How?

English has been around for 1000 years.

There were no Dutch speakers when the Anglo-Saxons arrived in England bringing their Germanic language with them, which was neither German nor Dutch.

Post by Adam?You mean another ones article copy pasted and posted under his name...the loser.

According to linguists, the origin of the Dutch language is about 700AD. Of course, it wasn't the Dutch that is spoken now.

That means Dutch is younger than English, because Old English was already being spoken in England in 700AD.

=>There were no Dutch speakers when the Anglo-Saxons arrived in England bringing their Germanic language with them<=

The Anglo-Saxons didnt speak English (at least nothing you would recognise.

Furthermore,English has a massive romance influence,therefore when comparing to dutch,English is close Dutch.

For me, I have basically a learned distinction between /w/ and /W/ (that is, <w> and <wh>), but such is not native to my dialect amongst people around my age or so, and I tend to only use such in formal speech or for effect.

zarafa: yes. All "wh" words are pronounced with a "w" for me. Whirl included of course.

Hahahaha!

Ever compared old 'english'to Dutch?! Ever heard about beowulf?

Sander

Do you spell it *wereld* or *wêreld*?

*wereld*,pronounced with a long first E and a short second E.

<<Do you also say "whirl" like "wirl?">>

Yep. /W/ is not a phoneme that occurs at all in my idiolect.