Why is the “wh” in “Where”/”What”/”White” sometimes pronounced with an “h”?

Question

Why is the “wh” in “Where”/”What”/”White” sometimes pronounced with an “h”?

In: 1

Answer 1

What, where, when and others are from old english, but they used to be spelt hwat, hwere, and hwen. After the normons conquered england in 1066 there was a significant merging of languages and some of these words were then spelled differently. I guess some still kept the ‘h’ pronunciation