Pronouncing the word "what" with a distinct initial breathy or aspirated "hw" sound—often spelled phonetically as "hwat"—is a traditional feature known as the wh-spelling pronunciation or wine-whine merger found in various regional dialects of English. This linguistic preservation occurs frequently in parts of Scotland, Ireland, the Southern United States, and among speakers who maintain historical phonetic distinctions between words starting with standard W and those historically spelled with WH.