And why is the W silent anyways?
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It is sometimes done in German. The word is Zwei, but it’s somewhat common to say Zwo instead for clarity. The w is pronounced.
I guess the" tw" sound isn’t used as frequently in English. It happens in between.
Curiously in words related to ‘two’ the W is often pronounced!
Twin, Twixt, Between, Twelve etc
Oh. My. God. I am so disappointed in myself that I never realized these words were all related before. Thank you for this gift.
A few less-obvious associations, just for fun:
- Just like “the house” /s/ is “to house” /z/, “the glass” /s/ is “to glaze” /z/
- Tiw’s Day, Wotan’s Day, Thor’s Day, Frigg’s Day. Note: Tiw, Wotan and Frigg are the native names for Norse Tyr, Odin and Freyja.
- “Flee”, “fly”, “flow” are all related.
- The “mus” in “muscle” is a borrowed cognate to native “mouse”.
By the argument, is the w in “two” actually silent? What would it sounds like when pronounced? I think it would sound like “two” already does.
It would sound like “twu” as in “twu wuv”
Tuwu, what’s this?
UwU
The U is silent
W
