H-cluster reductions[edit]
The wine–whine merger is the merger of /hw/ (or /ʍ/, spelt wh) with /w/. It occurs in the speech of the great majority of English speakers.
The hole–whole merger is the replacement of /hw/ with /h/ before the vowels /oː/ and /uː/ which occurred in Old English.
The yew–hew merger is a process that causes the cluster /hj/ to be reduced to /j/.
The hl-cluster, hr-cluster and hn-cluster reductions are three reductions that occurred in Middle English that caused the loss of /h/ from the initial consonant clusters /hl/, /hr/ and /hn/.