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I can hear people say "human" without the h-sound, while in other words like "huge", the h isn't dropped.

wodemingzi
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  • Because sometimes "h" is silent. And it often depends on the speaker and the accent he has grown up with. There are people who pronounce the "h" in "heirloom". – Hot Licks Oct 28 '18 at 11:38
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    @HotLicks Which dialects pronounce the "h" in "heirloom"? – Lawrence Oct 28 '18 at 12:34
  • @HotLicks Don't words like "hour" or "heir(loom)" have silent h's by default? Who says the h in "heirloom"? If anything, this h-dropping before u is the dialectal, non-"standard" thing, not the other one. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 28 '18 at 12:40
  • @Vun-HughVaw -- The usual pronunciation of "heirloom" is with a silent "h", but there are a few billion people in the world, and not all of them pronounce it the same way. I'm thinking that there's a British dialect where the "h" is pronounced. – Hot Licks Oct 28 '18 at 12:43
  • @HotLicks that's kinda a moot point. Indians say v for w, so surely there are many different ways to pronounce words or sound, but unless the question is asked otherwise, I think you should always default your answer to the most commonly taught varieties, ie General American or Received Pronunciation. Not to mention your comment was misleading because it implies that "there are [some] people" while in fact it's a standard pronunciation, unlike the non standard pronunciation this question is concerned about. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 28 '18 at 13:18
  • @HotLicks Perhaps you're thinking of "herb" which is pronounced with a "h" in BrEng, while Americans mispronounce it...oops, pronounce it differently, without the letter "h". – Mari-Lou A Oct 28 '18 at 13:47
  • Correct pronunciation of “herbs” – Mari-Lou A Oct 28 '18 at 13:50
  • @Vun-HughVaw - An important point is that this has to do not only with how the word is spoken, but how it is heard. Two reasonably literate native English speakers could hear the word spoken and one might argue that the "h" was silent while the other would insist just as strongly that the "h" was voiced. It has to do with the language environment you are acclimated to. – Hot Licks Oct 28 '18 at 14:19

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Your premise is incorrect. Most people pronounce the /h/ in both human and huge. And out of those people who drop the /h/ in human, most of them also drop the /h/ in huge, humor, humid, and so forth.

See this article. It's a trait found in several local dialects, including those of New York City, Philadelphia, Cork, and Dublin. For these speakers, words starting hu /hju.../ are pronounced with yu /ju.../.

Peter Shor
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