Vowel letter

A vowel letter is a letter that represents a vowel. A vowel is a speech sound in spoken language which is pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis.

For historical reasons there is a large mismatch between the number of vowels in English - which has up to twenty vowels (depending on the accent) - and the vowel letters, which are limited to A E I O U, and in some cases, Y (see below).

All vowel letters have 4 basic sounds: short sound, long sound, long rhotic monophthong and rhotic diphthong. They are shown here in five columns, because the so-called “short” sound (as in trap) is shown separately before /r/ (as in carry).

Two sounds of O (/ɔː/ and /oə/) have merged in most part of the English speaking world, so O has only 3 basic sounds.

Letter		So called “short” sound	Example		So called “long” sound	Example Single letter	Example Two letters		Long monophthong before /r/	Example		“Long” sound before /r/	Example Single letter	Example Two letters		“Short” sound before /r/	Example
A		/æ/	trap		/eɪ/	face	wait		/ɑː/	start		/eə/	square	pair		/æ/	carry, arid
E		/e/	dress		/iː/	we	fleece		/ɜː/	term		/ɪə/	here	near		/e/	cherry, very
I		/ɪ/	kit		/aɪ/	price	die		/ɜː/	girl		/aɪə/	fire	pliers		/ɪ/	mirror, spirit
Y		/ɪ/	gym		/aɪ/	try	rye		/ɜː/	myrrh		/aɪə/	tyreBrE			/ɪ/	lyrics
O		/ɒ,BrE ɑːAmE/	lot		/əʊ/	most	goat		/ɔː/	north		/ɔː/ used to be /oə/	force	board		/ɒ,BrE ɔːAmE/	torrid, forest
U		/ʌ/	strut		/juː/	cute	cue		/ɜː/	nurse		/jʊə/	cure			/ʌ/	hurry

Note that the words “long” and “short” are conventional names. For example /ɑː/^AmE is a long sound, but it is called “short o”.

A[edit]

See main article Decoding the letter A.

The vowel letter a has six common pronunciations, as in the following examples:

• /æ/: and - bad - carry - happy - man - trap

• /æ/,^AmE /ɑː/^BrE: ask - glass - bath

• /ɑːr/: car - marble - start

• /eɪ/: day - face - same - rain - stay

• /eə/: aware - care - scare - square

• /ɔ/: ball - call - law - saw - talk - walk

• /ə/: about - America - England

Spelling anomalies

• /ɒ/: want - watch
• /ɒ,^BrE ʌ^AmE/: what - wasn’t
• /e/: any - many - said - says

E[edit]

See main article Decoding the letter E.

The vowel letter e has six common pronunciations, as in the following examples:

• /e/: cherry - get - pen - well

• /ɜː/: service - term - verb

• /iː/ me - she - theme

• /ɪə/: here - material - period

• /ɪ/: return - decide - debate

• /ə/: happen - model - problem - teacher

End of word

• At the end of the word the letter e is normally silent. See silent e.

Examples:

same - theme - time - bone - cute - type

• The letter e is pronounced at the end of one-syllable words in which no other vowel is present:

he - we - she

Spelling anomalies

• catastrophe - Chile - karate - recipe

E is also part of some digraphs.

• "ea" and "ee" as /iː/: see - speak - weak - week - three

• "ei" or "ey" as /eɪ/: eight - weight - they

• "eu" or "ew" as /juː/: dew - Europe - few - new

I[edit]

See main article Decoding the letter I.

The vowel letter i has five common pronunciations, as in the following examples:

• /ɪ/: think - fit - win
• /aɪ/: time - night - wine
• /aɪə/: desire - fire - hire
• /ɜː/: bird - first - girl
• /ə/: April - civil - cousin

O[edit]

See main article Decoding the letter O.

The vowel letter o has four common pronunciations, as in the following examples:

• /ɒ/: long^BrE - off^BrE - on - stop

• /ɔː/: for - long^AmE - more - off^AmE - short - thought

• /əʊ/: go - home - open - phone

• /ʌ/: come - love - Monday - money

Spelling anomalies

• /uː/: do - lose - move - to - two - who
• /ʊ/: woman
• /ɪ/: women

U[edit]

See main article Decoding the letter U.

The vowel letter u has four common pronunciations, as in the following examples:

• /juː/: unit - use - tune - university.

• /uː/: brutal - June - rule - truth.

• /ʌ/: fun - but - butter - summer.

• /ɜː/: turn - return - burn - Thursday.

Spelling anomalies

• busy - minute - sure

Y[edit]

See main article Decoding the letter Y.

The letter y corresponds to both a vowel and a consonant.^[1]

As a vowel it has two common pronunciations in English, as in the following examples:

• /aɪ/: try - fly - why - my

• /iː/ or /ɪ/: city - easy - tiny - ugly

As a consonant:

• /j/: yes - you - year

Semivowel[edit]

To further complicate the matter, English also has semivowels - letters such as "L" and "W" which, like our "Y" above, can have the properties of both vowels and consonants.

Curiosities[edit]

There obviously aren't many words in English that contain all the vowel letters, but abstemious and facetious are two of the relatively common ones^[2] - and are both spelt in a-e-i-o-u order, too.

References[edit]

See also[edit]

• Consonant
• English
• International Phonetic Alphabet
• Linking
• Listening
• Pronunciation
• Speaking

External links[edit]

• "Right hemisphere influenced by speech context" Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics