Which accents have “wine” and “vine” start alike — the V–W merger?

Delhi Indian English, Pakistani English, German-accented English, Russian-accented English, Mandarin-accented English.

Which accents have “wine” and “vine” start with different sounds?

Modern RP / Standard Southern British, Bristol / Southwest English, West Country English, London / Estuary English, Multicultural London English, Birmingham / West Midlands English, Scouse / Liverpool English, Mancunian English, South Yorkshire English, West Yorkshire English, Geordie / Tyneside English, Central Scottish English, Highland Scottish English, South Wales English, Northern Irish English, Cork English, East Irish English, Southern Appalachian English, New York City English, California English, Texas English, Boston / Eastern New England English, Chicago / Inland North English, Newfoundland English, Jamaican English / Patwa continuum, Bajan English, Queensland Australian English, New Zealand English, Toronto Canadian English, Johannesburg South African English, Nigerian English, Kenyan English, Philippine English, Singapore English, Hong Kong English, Spanish-accented English, French-accented English, Italian-accented English, Brazilian Portuguese-accented English, Japanese-accented English.

Which accents have V and W are variably distinguished?

Delhi Indian English, Pakistani English.

Pronunciation

Wine or Vine? Where V and W Fall Together

English treats V and W as two separate sounds, which is less common across languages than English speakers assume. German and Russian have no W of the English kind, and South Asian English uses a single sound in the middle, so “wine” and “vine” can start alike. No native variety of English merges them.

The question, as everyone in the survey sees it

Do “wine” and “vine” start with the same sound?
Say “wine” and “vine” one after the other at a normal pace.

Yes — they start the same
No — the first sounds differ
It varies
I cannot tell

Answer it yourself and see where you land on the map →

Which accents do what

Each accent profile in the survey has an expected answer to this question. Where a profile allows more than one answer, the region genuinely varies.

Yes — they start the same

In these profiles, “wine” and “vine” start alike — the V–W merger.

Indian
Pakistani
German-accented English
Russian-accented English
Mandarin-accented English

No — the first sounds differ

In these profiles, “wine” and “vine” start with different sounds.

It varies

In these profiles, V and W are variably distinguished.

Why this question is in the survey

Pronunciation questions carry more weight in the scoring than vocabulary questions do, because they are much harder to change deliberately. People move house and pick up new words; the vowel system learned in childhood tends to stay. Every answer is stored with a coarse map cell for the town you grew up in, and a region is coloured in once at least five people there have answered.

See the full question bank, the accent profiles these answers feed, or how the scoring works.