# So what letters are vowels, again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 2, 2005, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560 "2005-03-02T05:31:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/21 "2005-03-02T17:21:48Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I’m aware of how the word used to be pronounced. But, the “GH” in night, right, might, etc now serves the purpose of making the I long (I’m sorry. I have no idea what the proper linguistic terms are here). No problem … as long as we are discussing only English, we can mutually understand terms like “long” and “short” as they were taught to us in grade school. To me, it’s preferable to say that the trigraph IGH now represents a “long I” sound rather than to say that it’s the GH that makes an otherwise short I into a long I. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/22 "2005-03-02T17:27:29Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > While I understand the point you’re making, every dictionary I can find gives two definitions for “vowel” - the sound, and the letters. Certainly if you asked random people who came through the American public school system, I doubt that more than a small percentage would give you the “sounds” definition rather than the “list of letters” definition. > > Indeed, I’m considered a language nitpicker, and even I would call the letters “vowels” and the sounds “vowel sounds.” I will concede that I’d be wrong in the latter case, mind you, but I don’t think I’d be in the minority. That’s fine – but if you ask about the status of the letter W “as a vowel”, we can no longer couch the discussion in imprecise, colloquial terms. Otherwise, the only answer we could give to your OP would be, “W is sometimes a vowel because the teacher said so.” ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/23 "2005-03-02T17:49:17Z")
**Bordelond** Re-reading the thread, either I missed a few posts, or they weren’t there when I hit reply. If I understand you correctly, the W in now represents an actual vocalized sound, and is arguably a vowel. The GH in night, while informing us that we’re dealing with a long I, is not voiced and is part of single vowel sound, and is not a vowel. Bit Of A Hijack Of the posters with knowledge of dipthongs and aspirants, how many of you are ventriloquists? It seems to me that with your knowledge of which sounds can be made without moving the lips, or visibly moving anything else, and your knowledge of what sounds can be substituted for these, ventriloquism would be a simple matter. ---
**Author:** ![Big-Ole-Steve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Big-Ole-Steve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big-Ole-Steve)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/24 "2005-03-02T17:52:56Z")
When I was an elementary kid (82-89) I (and most the people my age that I’ve asked) were taught that the vowels were A-E-I-O-U and Sometimes Y, no mention of W. My younger sister had a teacher tell her that W was also sometimes a vowell. I was SCANDALIZED. THE HELL YOU SAY! we all know the vowells, dammit, and there’s no room for W! Well…I even went so far as confronting this teacher when I saw her several years later in a supermarket. I asked her, politely to explain it, and she explained it using the “interruption of air” method. I decided the poor woman was insane, and had no clue what she was talking about. I grow up, do some reading on my own, and discover that yes, W sure CAN be a vowell. I remember the verbal beatdown I gave my sister when she repeated what her teacher taught her, and it’s one of those many reminders that know-it-alls, those who hold on to what they’ve been told without actually researching it, are usually wrong and make asses of themselves. And so I now research stuff before I make an ass out of myself! Of course, my sister went on to skip that grade half way through the year, Go to Havard, be elected student body president, and just this past year, made law review at Harvard Law. So, ya know, she got the last laugh as to who knows more. 😛 Steve ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/25 "2005-03-02T18:26:14Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > **Bordelond** If I understand you correctly, the W in now represents an actual vocalized sound, and is arguably a vowel. The simplest thing to say is that the sound that the letter W represents is sometimes a vowel, and sometimes a consonant. You know the expression “neither fish nor foul”? Well, W is **both** fish and fowl. [QUOTE=DocCathode] The GH in night, while informing us that we’re dealing with a long I, is not voiced and is part of single vowel sound, and is not a vowel. [QUOTE] I can’t follow you when you say that a sequence of written letters is “part of a … vowel sound”. My phonetic training gets in the way. IMO, the letter GH are there, but just as markers. No sound “belongs” to the sequence GH. If I give an example from another language, it may help. In Portugese, the letter H can be a marker that either L or N are pronounced with a following “y glide” (cf. the difference between English _canon_ and _canyon_, or _Millen_ and _million_). But the H itself doesn’t “stand for” the “y glide”. Rather, the digraphs NH and LH, in Portugese are discrete, indivisible orthographic representations of [ny] and [ly] (which are considered single sounds in Portugese, not a sequence like [n]+[y]) – they can be pretty much treated as single letters, in fact. Same with IGH in English. It serves as a discrete, indivisible orthographic representation of “long I” in English. \*\* fellow linguists: please forgive me for any bowdlerization above.\* ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/26 "2005-03-02T18:43:12Z")
We don’t count “borrowed” words, mostly. “_Cwm_” is a Welsh word, not an English one, although due to it’s popularity with Crossword puzzle writers, it is in the larger dictionaries. There are some foriegn words that don’t follow a Q with a U, but still in English, that’s a pretty solid rule. In Cow, How and others, W works as a vowel. I’ll point out that Cecil has Spoken, and agrees with me- or perhaps rather I agree with him. 😃 [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2\_246.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_246.html) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/27 "2005-03-02T19:20:12Z")
As far as which letters are (OK, represent) vowels and which ones don’t, many of us were also taught that every syllable must have a vowel. But what about words like “rhythm” or “chasm”? If we insist that every syllable has a vowel, and that the only letters which represent vowels are A, E, I, O, and U (and sometimes Y, and maybe W), then we come to the absurd conclusion that “rhythm” and “chasm” are both one-syllable words. The much more elegant solution, I would argue, would be to admit that m can sometimes (as in those two words) represent a vowell. And once you’ve accepted that, it’s easy to accept that the sounds represented by F, H, L, N, R, S, V, and Z can also be vowels. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/28 "2005-03-02T19:42:03Z")
Or you could say that in “rhythm” and “chasm,” there is a second vowel, but it is not orthographically represented. It’s not so unusual. What about “Colm” in Irish? ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/29 "2005-03-02T19:47:05Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > As far as which letters are (OK, represent) vowels and which ones don’t, many of us were also taught that every syllable must have a vowel. But what about words like “rhythm” or “chasm”? … The much more elegant solution, I would argue, would be to admit that m can sometimes (as in those two words) represent a vowel. The second vowel sound in “chasm” is unrepresented in the spelling. The [m] is the coda of the second syllable, not the peak. That said, there are certainly occurances in human language when consonant sounds serve as syllabic peaks. In English, in a common American pronunciation the word “button”, the [n] is the syllabic peak (with a null coda). This can occcur because the tongue and lips do not have to change shape to pronounce the second syllable. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/30 "2005-03-02T20:00:38Z")
[Link to a previous discussion about the nature of consonants, vowels, and everything in between](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=4934330#post4934330). Re: pronunciation of the Cantonese surname Ng (from the link above): > [@bordelond](#): > > What throws people accustomed to Western languages is that in some dialects (_viz_ Cantonese), Chinese allows syllables that consist solely of a consonant sound. > > In this case, that consonant is the velar nasal “ng” (International Phonetic Association symbol is “ŋ”). Compare the velar nasal to the familiar bilabial nasal (m) and alveolar nasal (n). Like **m** and **n** , **ng** can be pronounced in an extended manner – one can hum “mmmmm”, “nnnnnn”. Likewise, one can also hum ng – “ŋŋŋŋŋŋŋŋŋ”. > > By contrast, consonants like **t** and **k** cannot be extended. Their pronunciation has a temporary and punctuated saliency. > > What does this all mean? In short, a few languages allow extendable consonants to form syllabic nuclei in much the same way as (naturally extendable) vowels do. So the name _Ng_ can be regarded in the same way as names like _Oh_ (Japanese) and _U_ (Burmese) – it is a single-sound syllable. > > Other extendable sounds are used to form syllabic nuclei. Not too unfamiliar are the use or “r” and “l” as syllabic nuclei in Slavic languages – Czech _Plzen_, Serbo-Croatian _hrvatski_. > > Also, IIRC, in some dialects of Chinese, the number “two” (Mandarin “two” spelled _er[sup]4[/sup]_ in Pinyin) is pronounced much like “zzzzzzzzzh”, except the tongue tip is raised near the roof of the mouth. > > Finally, in some American Indian languages, such [Bella Coola](http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_034200_salishanlang.htm), words like _sps_ (pronounced more or less “ssspsss”) exist. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/31 "2005-03-03T02:33:34Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > In the generic American accent, these are the most common vowels – > > Pure vowels– > > – Front vowels > > ---- \* as in “feet” or “meet” > ---- \* (small capital I or lowercase iota or dotless lowercase I) as in “fit” or “mitt” > ---- [E] (epsilon) as in “Fett” or “met” > ---- [&] (a-e ligature) as in “fat” or “mat” > > – Back vowels > > ---- as in “moot” > ---- (turned small capital omega or closed lowercase omega) as in “foot” > ---- [O] (turned lowercase C (open lowercase O)) as in “fought” > ---- [V] (turned lowercase V) as in “mutt” > ---- [A] (script lowercase A) as in “bother” > > – Central vowels > > ---- [@] (schwa (turned lowercase E)) > ---- [@r] schwa hook (R-coloured schwa) > > Diphthongs and glides > > ---- [eI] (e, small capital I) as in “fate” or “mate” > ---- [aI] (a, small capital I) as in “fight” or “might” > ---- [oU] (o, turned small capital omega) as in “moat” > ---- [jU] (j, turned small capital omega) as in “mute” **Ascenray** has it down…except that > [@](#): > > ---- [O] (turned lowercase C (open lowercase O)) as in “fought” …I know that pure vowel, it’s prominently present here in New York City. (also in “Aww poor baby”, “lawyer”, “taught”, “bought”, etc.). But where I grew up in Georgia, those words are all pronounced with a diphthong and the lowercase C / open lowercase O sound you refer to is seldom voiced by itself down there. “Fought” would start off like “father” and then close down to the sound to which you refer. You’re an IPA user, I can tell 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/32 "2005-03-03T02:45:58Z")
Grey areas abound, if for no other reason than our inability to enunciate certain sounds in certain sequences and make them sound different than (what we think of as) moderately different sounds within those sequences, even though in _other_ sequences the distinction is more apparent. There’s an Italian pizzaria-chain you’ll see in some northeastern public spaces: _ **Sbarro’s** _. I challenge you to say it in a way that makes it plain that you are not saying “Sparro’s” instead. And yet we have no difficulty distinguishing between “Pete” and “beat”, “maple” and “Mabel”. Context counts for a lot. IMHO, the IPA does a damn good job of trimming the whole works down to a manageable handful of symbols, seldom modified by diacriticals, each symbol having one and only one sound, each sound having one and only one symbol — all within the limits of context and our ability to distinguish sounds, especially those we aren’t attuned to, etc. I grew up with other phonetic systems, beginning with the classical American-dictionary version in which “long” vowels had lines above them, short vowels had curvy lines above them, and other diacriticals distinguished other vowel sounds (e.g., ä was used to represent the a sound in father and sometimes also the o sound in rot although sometimes the latter would be signified by ô). IPA is clean and easy to use, at least for most non-EastAsian languages where pitch isn’t a factor. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2005, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/33 "2005-03-05T17:43:41Z")
I also recall as a young student in the early 1970s that my Phonics book had something on the inside cover saying the vowels were “a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y and w.” I also recall about ten years later, my sophomore English teacher told us that the only two English words that used w in a traditional vowel position were both Welsh derivatives: cwm and crwth, although I don’t remember what either of them means. I can also never think of vowels without recalling a record I bought on the advice of the 1991 edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide: “The Best of the Paragons”, an early Doo-Wop group. It conains a song called “The Vows of Love”, which begins: “A is for (something something), E is for …” It took me a second to realize this was an Ebonics play on words. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/34 "2005-03-07T13:57:18Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > There’s an Italian pizzaria-chain you’ll see in some northeastern public spaces: _ **Sbarro’s** _. I challenge you to say it in a way that makes it plain that you are not saying “Sparro’s” instead. And yet we have no difficulty distinguishing between “Pete” and “beat”, “maple” and “Mabel”. Context counts for a lot. My understanding is that in Italian, “sb” is pronounced fully voiced, as [zb]. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560/35 "2005-03-07T16:03:36Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > My understanding is that in Italian, “sb” is pronounced fully voiced, as [zb]. This is true for Italian, but does not affect the point **AHunter** is making about contextual phonetics in English. For the sake of an example, we can treat _Sbarro’s_ as an English word. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-letters-are-vowels-again/292560.md?page=1)