We’ve all heard of A, E, I, O, U, but I remember my teachers saying “And sometimes “Y””. Can anyone give me examples of words with no regular vowels other than the Y?
And other than cwm, anyone know other words like it?
Are you kidding? Try cry, why, or by.
dry, fly, my, pry, sty.
Several Welsh borrowings have “w” as a vowel. “Cwlwm” (A Celtic knot) is another example. I thing Crwm is a word too. In English, ‘w’ is regarded as a semi-vowel, and in fact, if you speak with saying “oo” instead of “w”, it’s hard to tell the difference. oo-ord vs. word.
Also ‘w’ is called “double-u” because it was originally a ligation of uu, I think, and ‘u’ is of course a vowel.
Here’s Cecil’s take on the use of “w” as a vowel. As Cecil says, “cwm” is not what linguists have in mind when they say w can be used as a vowel.
I agree that it shouldn’t entirely be a vowel (those words are Welsh) but they ARE listed in some Oxford English Dictionaries.
(Sorry about being stupid about the Y words… I can’t think )
My favorite y word is ‘rhythm’