I learned in school that every english word has a vowel in it (though some of them use y as a vowel). My question: Are there any words that do not have any vowels? (“nth” comes to mind. Are there others? Is “nth” really a word?) Also, is that “y is sometimes a vowel” rule just there to justify the rule that all words have vowels?
Cwm - I think it means ‘valley’. (@ work - no reference)
What!?
The “y is sometimes a vowel” thing comes most likely just from the different sounds y can make (the origins of those sounds and their binding to the letter y I do not know). Y can stand for a consonant-type sound such as in “yet,” or an undoubtedly vowel-like sound as in “dye.” I don’t know whether every English word must have a vowel, but I can’t think of any that don’t. I do not believe that “nth” is a word, but that it is a deriviative of a symbol or other type of expression. . .
“Nth” has been accepted in some dictionaries as being a word. Although lacking a vowel in spelling, nevertheless it does have one in pronunciation.
“W” is a stand-alone vowel in some words of Welsh origin, and appears as a vowel frequently in combinations with other vowels (three times in this sentence alone).
I don’t know of any “real” words lacking vowels, though. The closest is “sh,” which has entered a number of dictionaries.
SM WRTTN LNGGS DN’T HV VWLS N THR WRTTN FRM, BT VR LNGG N TH PLNT HS VWLS N TH SPKN FRM. FR XMPL, CLSSCL HBRW DSN’T RCRD VWLS N TS WRTTN FRM, BT TH VWLS R SNDD JST TH SM WHN SPKNG CLSSCL HBRW.
Yup, “cwm” is a word. It’s pronounced “koom,” and is from Welsh. As Mjollnir explained,
So “cwm” does indeed have a vowel.
2nd grade answer: All words must have vowels. In fact, all syllables must have vowels.
grown-up answer: In human speech, it is pretty much essential to arrange sounds that interrupt the flow of air around sounds that are made by ongoing air flow; the latter are mainly vowels. Many sounds are considered semi-vowels and, although English does not tend to represent words made with these by writing them with no vowels (assuming we include “y” in the vowel-list), you could use any of the following sounds in place of what we usually consider vowels–
r n l m v w z
–but with one major exception you can’t make as much with these semi-vowel sounds as you can with the conventional vowels; your mouth is much more closed off. [terms like the above-mentioned “nth” are really pronounced “enth”, but you CAN actually say “nth” using n as the vowel (go ahead, try it)…but from 3 feet away it is hard to hear you do so]. Some languages use them as vowels anyway, but English doesn’t tend to, so you don’t have words like twn, klg, gvnm, or zg.
The exception is the r sound, which carries well. In English we spell the vowel “r” sound with “er” “ur”, “ir”, etc., but the sound we make is the same “r” sound we consider to be a consonant in world like “heart” or “really”.
Thnks lt lbrdrn! Y stl my snwr.
Y bt m t t.
n, wrds d nt nd vwls.
nly th ns y cn prnnc.
When I saw this, I was going to post “This must be the nth time this question has come up. Yes, words have to have vowels. Except in a cwm in the mountains of Krk.” Unfortunately, everybody beat me to the fun stuff.
So here goes: Every word must have at least one vowel sound. But A, E, I, O, U, and Y are not the only possible vowels. Czech, Slovenian, and Serbo-Croatian use R for a vowel (with the “urr” sound of -er endings in English). In fact, the name of the country we call Croatia in Serbo-Croatian is Hrvatska, with the first syllable being “Hr-”. W is common in many languages as a standalone vowel and relatively common as part of diphthongs in English (compare “now” and “noun” – both begin with an N and follow it with a vowel sound, the latter having a final N – they’re just written differently). I believe some Eastern European languages use L and N as vowels, too.
Other alphabets also have varying numbers of vowels, too. Russian has ten, though they “cheat” by incorporating a palatalization of the preceding consonant into the vowel. Greek has seven: alpha, epsilon, eta, iota, omicron, omega, and upsilon. And, as noted, written Hebrew has no vowels, only diacritical marks to indicate that a written consonant is accompanied by a vowel sound.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. I’m ashamed you had to ask. Of COURSE words have to have vowels…
Can you play that on your crwth? (another borrowing from Welsh)
If you are inclined to dig through the OED, you can find a number of archaic spellings where W is a vowel. My favorite is xwld, a 15th century spelling of “should”.
I think AHunter3’s explained it best. This whole issue was a source of confusion for me before I learned what vowels and consonants are.
But seeing as how there’s been mention of cwm and crwth, I just thought I’d mention something from ol’ Cecil hisself :
Junky cwm, fjord-bank qoph-flags vext quiz, crwd zimb.
pnma jck
Thanks for the link, that gives me the chance for a “Cecil wuz rong” post (the holy grail of true dopers).
Cecil said:
OK, he was making a joke, but is that any reason to give bogus info? W and Y, or I should say /w/ and /y/ are semivowels because the sounds are made with continuous flow of air, but with the mouth constricting the flow somewhat more than for a pure vowel. These sounds have little to do with the sounds around them, or at least no more than the typical consonant.
We say that Y is sometimes a vowel for a different reason. Many times it is used to represent a pure vowel sound without any other vowels next to it, such as in his example “copy”. Some people say that W is also sometimes a vowel, but we don’t use it the same as Y. Except for the two Welsh borrowings (cwm and crwth) and the archaic spellings, W doesn’t stand alone to represent a pure vowel sound. We use it in diphthongs, but that’s all.
The examples Cecil used were not truly parallel. If you listen carefully, you will probably hear a w-glide at the end of “cow”, whereas “copy” has a pure vowel. A y-glide is introduced in “copier”, but “coward” just has a /@rd/ added (@=schwa).
Doncha mean /j/ instead of /y/? It’s my understanding that /y/ in the IPA alphabet represents a “close front vowel” (dont worry if you dont know what that is, i’m not sure either). /j/ represents the y sound in words like “yes”.
Oops, you’re right. /j/ is what I meant. /y/ is a vowel sound in French and German that I never could pronounce right. In German it was the u-umlaut, I think. I forget the usual spelling in French.
If I remember from French class, we were supposed to round our lips as if to say O, but then pronounce a long E. Or maybe the other way around. I have no idea how anyone could pronounce such a vowel.
Most Scots also pronounce a /y/ when they say English “oo” sounds, as in “do”, “you”. It is also used in many other languages including Hungarian, Turkish and Mandarin Chinese, so that you might say a majority of people in the world not only can pronounce it but do. And you can too with practice.
Try the scramble players dictionary, there are a few no vowel entries.
I know that the OP was about English, but I think there are certain languages that are vowel challenged. The language spoken by the !Kung come to mind. It seems to be mainly clicks and buzzes. (For an example and a good time rent “The God’s Must Be Crazy I & II.”)
sh \sh often prolonged\ interjection (1847)
— used often in prolonged or rapidly repeated form to urge or command silence or less noise
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