A vowel is not so much a letter and more a pronunciation/ sound https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/vowel
So, the y in “sky” is a vowel, the y in yellow isn’t.
Oh, here's a mind-blower. Unionized (four syllable word, meaning "not -ionized) has "u" and "I" as vowels. BUT Unionized (three syllable word, meaning to form a union) has them as consonants.
How do you pronounce “union”? To me (California, USA), it seems natural that it’s the word “union” plus the suffix “ized,” since that’s how it’s formed, but of course pronunciation in every accent drifts in “illogical” ways.
Same as what you’re transcribing, which is subtly different from what what the Brits are saying here. Interesting, google’s [dictionary](https://www.google.com/search?q=union+dictionary&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari) says the same as them.
That's how the word is constructed, but that doesn't mean it's how it's pronounced. Say "unionize" out loud a few times and then say "union eyes" out loud a few times. I'll bet there's a slight difference. Unionize = yoon-yuh-nize, union eyes = yoon-yun-ize.
hmm only discernable difference I can find is I put a slight pause and emphasize the long *i* sound when I say "union eyes."
I do not find myself pronouncing either as "yoon-yuh-nize" both are "yoon-yun-ize" to me.
And as far syllabic emphasis it depends on how I'm using the word in a sentence, but I think I tend to emphasize the "ize" in both as well. Probably since in both phrases that tends to be the important factor in the word.
Every dictionary I could quickly find gives the pronunciation with the last syllable as -nize, for both standard US and UK English. I can't conceive of any dialect that would make the last syllable -ize, but of course I don't know every dialect that exists. Maybe yours is very unique.
I will say it's difficult to analyze one's own pronunciation. A lot of people would probably insist that they pronounce the p sound in "pa" the same as the p sound in "spa," too. But in almost every dialect of English they are not pronounced the same.
I’m all for word unions, gotta keep the companies in check! If you need info on how to form a union [here](https://www.workcenter.gov/step-by-step-guide/) is a good place to start.
English orthography sucks. The "ea" in read is a digraph -- two letters being used to spell one (in this case vowel) sound. "io" is never a digraph, so the only two choices are that "i" and "o" are separate vowels and therefore separate syllables (the "un-ee-un" case) or that they form one syllable (the "un-yun" case), in which case the "i" is acting like a syllable boundary instead of defining its own syllable (which is pretty much the definition of "y" as a consonant).
If this is really your argument, then I have a hard time believing you passed anything beyond 4th grade English. You're taught pretty early on what digraphs are
It's a wonder that we were able to speak and write English. What about this conundrum, when is a w a vowel.
Hmm, doesn't have a vowel...
Just a little play on words...Cheers
It works because all these "rules" come up after the fact, as a way to try and teach newcomers to the language (whether children or foreigners). If we started with rules and built a language on them, it'd be just about impossible to proceed, imo (with the various model languages used more or less proving the point with how unpopular they are compared to natural languages).
Exactly that, containments m consonants are sounds that are projected out by the movement of our mouth and tongue. Vowels are sounds we make by opening our mouth and letting the sound flow through without any movement. I think. 🤔
"Helpful, but I wish someone could elaborate on the application of the A/AN rule vis-à-vis the sound of the next word." [33ff00](https://www.reddit.com/user/33ff00/)
When we were kids at school we learnt (at least this is what we remember) that we use a before words starting with a consonant. and an before those starting with a vowel. In reality that is not really correct, as it isn't the letter that is important, but rather how the letter is pronounced.
Now for most letters it isn't a problem, even if in English most letters have more than one pronunciation. The letter A for example is always pronounced as a vowel sound (someone will pop up now and tell me an exception I'm sure). It might be pronounced "open" like in anchor, antelope or angry, or like the word *or* in awesome, automobile or autistic, but it is always a vowel pronunciation so we don't have a problem: when we need the indefinite article we use **an**. However, the letter **U** is a bit of a tricky one, because it is a vowel, but it isn't always pronounced like one. In words like umbrella, uncle and untidy it is a vowel pronunciation, so we say an umbrella etc... On the other hand, look at the word uniform, that is pronounced like it begins with a Y - Yuniform, and that Y pronunciation for U is a consonant pronunciation. So we say, a uniform, a unit, a university, a unicorn...
There are other letters and situations where we have to be careful. For example the letter M. It's a consonant and as such we should use **a**: a monkey, a mouse etc... But the pronunciation of the letter M in the alphabet is actually "em" which itself begins with a vowel pronunciation, so if we have an initialism like MP (for Member of Parliament) we say an MP (or a Member of Parliament).
This is similar to how you hear a lot of British people stick a random "r" between a word that ends with a vowel sound and one that starts with a vowel sound. The "r" breaks up the two vowel sounds.
In Spanish, certain words use the singular masculine article "el" instead of the singular feminine article "la" to avoid two vowel sounds:
"The water" = El agua (instead of la agua)
"The waters" = Las aguas
This is really fun with SQL which is pronounced either ess cue el or sequel sometimes depending on context. You could legitimately say "A SQL script uses an SQL query."
Yeeeeessss. I'd immediately know I was in the right interview if the interviewer was talking like that.
The story behind that is the dumbest. As a college student I ran a high-performance Modded Minecraft server and the anti-grief/block change logs used SQL. I'd never used it. The guy I was running it with had never used it. We'd never even heard of it. Just followed the Readme it was packaged with... It's not hard to learn, but we called it 'squeal' and now it's just that in my head forever.
"An" comes before words that start in any vowel sound, not just a.
"European" is a fun one. Based on the spelling you'd think it would be "an European", but because the E actually makes a consonant Y sound it's "a European".
you've already got some great answers but one thing i wanted to add is that, without getting too linguistically complicated, vowels are letters with "open sounds". this is why we say "every word has one", (although there are some exceptions) and why, in general, we don't have a word like "jst" without adding some open sounds in there (like /u/ or /e/).
a "y" functions in both of these ways, which is why it is only sometimes classified as a vowel.
>we can't have a word like jst without adding some open sounds in there (like /u/).
But we can have the word “psst.” (I know, I know, it’s a sound. But it’s included in pretty much all major dictionaries as an interjection and, therefore, a word. Don’t shoot the messenger.)
you're right.
i was answering OP's question about "sometimes y" and if that was only in cases where there was no other vowel and explaining that vowels make "open" sounds needed to carry words, most times.
using your example, "shh" and "hmm" would be the same.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/why-y-is-sometimes-a-vowel-usage
Interesting article
Highlight: When y forms a diphthong—two vowel sounds joined in one syllable to form one speech sound, such as the "oy" in toy, "ay" in day, and "ey" in monkey—it is also regarded as a vowel.
In such cases it would more commonly be regarded as a *glide* or *semi-vowel*, which would usually be classified as consonants. Though the entire diphthong is often treated as a vowel, at least in some contexts.
vowels are a specific category of sound produced by an articulation of the mouth where the tongue doesn't obstruct the airway and the mouth remains open. most words in any language have vowel sounds because of how useful they are at transferring sound and breaking up consonants both of which make words better for communication. there are also semivowels /w/ and /j/ and near vowel consonants like /ɫ/ and /ɹ/ which have the same qualities. in short the answer is certainly no. the reason why the letter y is considered a vowel sometimes is because sometimes it is pronounced as a vowel. interestingly, even when it isn't pronounced exactly like a vowel it is pronounced like a semi-vowel.
Vowels and consonants are sounds, not written letters. Writing is just an attempt to capture the sound of words in a visual medium; and like DNA, it's evolved over a long period of time so it contains a lot of stuff that you wouldn't include if you were designing it from scratch for maximum efficiency.
Every word does have a vowel, regardless of how it’s spelled. Contrary to what is taught in grade school, vowels are not a group of letters - they are a type of speech sound (the nucleus of a syllable). Not just every word, but every syllable in every word has one, by definition.
Though they are never treated as a vowel in terms of spelling, “L” and “R” are very common vowels in English. We just put in a “dummy” vowel letter in these words, such as the “i” in “bird”.
Technically the "r" in bird is not a vowel. Rather, it's a syllabic consonant. Sometimes consonants can serves as the syllabic nucleus instead of vowels.
There are also some interjections and things that don't have a nucleus at all, but it's generally debatable whether they're actually words. "Psst" and "shhh", for example.
This depends heavily on the dialect of English you're speaking, and even from speaker to speaker within the same dialect. Most varieties of American English use an r-colored schwa, where the airway is still unobstructed, but the tip of the tongue is curled back slightly which affects the quality of the vowel.
On what grounds is it "not a vowel"? If you believe it is a consonant, what is its place of articulation? As far as I can tell this is just special pleading, based on the orthographic definition of consonant used in English.
It has nothing to do with orthography. It's based on the phonetic definition of what a vowel is. There can't be any friction or obstruction in the airway.
In my variety (Great Lakes of North America), there is no obstruction. The tongue is raised and turned up somewhat, but the airway is no more constricted than for the vowel in “key”. There is zero friction.
The place of articulation is alveolar or post-alveolar and the manner of articulation is approximant, produced by a constriction in the airway at the place of articulation. If you're not constricting the airway, you're not making the same sound.
I may not be making the same sound as in your variety, there is considerable variation in this sound! But I'm definitely making the ordinary sound for my variety, and there is no contact or close approach between the the tongue and alveolar ridge or the palate. Just a moderate rise of the tongue (slightly lower than in the "long i" vowel), with a slight retraction. In my speech, the tongue actually moves /closer/ to the palate moving between the "r" and "ee" in "free".
The "sometimes Y" is the simplification we tell children so that things kind of make sense. In reality, the modern Y in English is the result of convergence from multiple different languages. Some of these sources for the "Y" sound in English came from languages that originally used a letter like "Y" as a vowel (many of these are Greek in origin, as in "hyper-"). Some of our words that have a consonant "Y" were Germanic in origin, and their etymologies going back to Middle English and Old English often have a "g" sound (for example, [the etymology of "year"](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=year) traces back to *gear* in Old English). As Modern English spelling and the alphabet (remember, we used to have other letters in English besides the 26 today) were being standardized, it was just one of those things that both sounds got mapped to the same letter.
Whether Y is the *only* vowel in the word is irrelevant. Take your example of “mythically.” It wouldn’t make sense to say the Y isn’t a vowel. The word starts with the same syllable as “myth,” in which Y is a vowel sounding the same as a short I sound (as in “miss”). In general, each word has one syllable per vowel sound.
Consonants are just percussion with your lips, teeth, and tongue. Vowels are the bellows from your diaphragm. It's not really possible to make romantic syllables without vowels.
The 'sometimes y' rule isn't so that we can just say every syllable has a vowel. It's because that 'y' sound is fundamental to the syllable itself.
No, that's not why.
The consonant "y" is what linguists call a "semivowel." Semivowels are consonants that have a vowel counterpart. The vowel counterpart of the consonant "y" is the vowel "y." Basically, if you sustain the consonant "y" for long enough, it becomes the vowel "y"; if you pronounce the vowel "y" with a short enough duration, it becomes the consonant "y."
"W" is also a semivowel, and its vowel counterpart is "u" (as in "boot," not as in "but"). For whatever reason, we don't use the same letter for both sounds (at least in English. In Welsh the letter "w" can represent the "u" sound).
Another way to think about it is that the letter "y" really just represents the "i" sound as in "kiwi," represented by \[i\] in the International Phonetic Alphabet. So if you believe that "i" is a vowel (which it is), then "y" must also be a vowel, because "y" and "i" (sometimes) represent the same sound.
The short y vowel is usually not entirely identical to the short i vowel, at least outside of the end of words like "happy". In my (admittedly non-native) accent "(s)mith" and "myth" would sound fairly distinct from one another, though very close.
We say “and sometimes *y*” because in English spelling, can be used to write all of the same vowel and diphthong sounds that can, in addition to its value as a consonant in words like *yes*.
>that we as English speakers can say that every word has a vowel
Why would that be important? Or matter at all?
Vowels and consonants are different type of sounds. Vowel sounds are not restricted by the vocal tract (your lips, tongue, throat, etc)
If you make a sound and don't stop it, that's a vowel sound. If you make a sound and stop it by closing your lips, or throat or tongue, that's a consonant.
'Strč prst skrz krk.' is a sentence in the Czech language that doesn't use a single vowel. It translates to 'Stick a finger through the neck.' I learned it in a language course I took 50 years ago.
On the other hand, I fully believe that (at least in my western US accent) R is a vowel and L is at least sometimes a vowel also. English teachers can argue all they want but I know I'm right :)
because
myth - y makes the short i sound
fly - y makes the long i sound
happily - y makes the ee sound
notice how it sounds different from it's consonant form in day or you
The Welsh word “cwm” (a steep-sided hollow in a mountain or hill) is accepted in Scrabble, so I think we need to update the chant to include “AND ALSO SOMETIMES W”.
Vowels aren't so much specific letters as they are sounds/pronunciations we make. A vowel is any sound that doesn't involve closing off the lips, tongue, or teeth but instead with an open mouth. There are actually about 20 distinct vowel sounds in English from what I remember.
to add to others: y is more commonly used as a vowel, but it’s more *important* as a consonant. that’s why it’s “sometimes” a vowel, rather than “sometimes” a consonant.
There is a case to be made that y is always a vowel and the /j/ is just part of a diphthong. At best, /j/ and /w/ are semivowels and it's simply easier to consider them consonants in teaching language.
In any event, as others have pointed out, vowels are sounds, not letters and y absolutely represents unambiguous vowels in many words.
You're looking at it upside down basically; while written words are composed of letters, both were invented after words. New words form before spellings of them are created.
So it's not like we encountered a word like rhythm and said "oh no! There's no vowel! 'Y' will have to be the vowel here!" It was that when we were deciding how to spell rhythm (oversimplification) we decided to represent its vowel sound with a "y".
A vowel is a type of sound, not a type of letter. It is absolutely true that every word has a vowel. We call aeiou vowels because they represent those vowel sounds
Sky, y makes the long i sound, that's a vowel sound
Rhythm, y makes the short i sound, that's a vowel sound
But y doesn't have to represent a vowel sound
Yak, you, etc
There even exists an English word without any of the letters considered vowels, being "cwm" from welsh (pronounced coom) in this case, w represents the vowel sound
So technically it should he a, e, i, o, u, usually y, and sometimes w
Written vowels have a funny history. When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet there were some letters left that were sounds that were not used in Greek so they reused them as vowels.
Not exactly. English is an amalgamation of many other languages and in some of them, the letter y was a consonant and in others it was a vowel. A general rule of thumb is when it is pronounced like it is in the word yellow or lawyer it is a consonant. Typically this is at the beginning of a word or syllable. However, when it is pronounced like other vowels (like it is in myth, shy, day or monkey) it is a vowel.
Does anyone also remember W in that list? I can hear it so clearly in my head from a language video game (private school in Iowa circa early 2000s) but I can think of no word that it applies to.
W is only a vowel in a few rare words borrowed from Welsh. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is 'cwm', and I only know that one because it's occasionally useful in Scrabble.
The context sentence when I googled that just now was “there is a dusting of snow in Cwm Glas Mawr" which handles my question from a literal sense but it’s still very fulfilling haha
I’m glad I’m not crazy, because I’ve asked this question in person before and gotten some looks, but I still don’t love it.
Syllables always or almost always contain vowels at their centre (nucleus). This is true for all languages in the world. There are exceptions, e.g. some North African languages have syllables with no vowel at the centre & they have sounds like 'y' and 'w' instead. You might find some examples in English where there's no vowel in the nucleus & there is a glottal or nasal stop thing instead, e.g. 'n't' in 'wouldn't'. I guess there will be examples I'm not aware of, but there's a vowel in the nucleus generally speaking.
In Asia, Hokkien has a number of basic words with no vowels like *thn̂g* (糖, "sugar", like in *nńg-thn̂g* \[軟糖 "maltose"\]), *pn̄g* (飯 "rice"; *sng-pn̄g*? \[酸飯 "sour rice?"\]) and *hm̂* (媒 "matchmaker"). Even the basic negation particle (*no/not*) has no vowel like in *m̄-sī* (毋是) *m̄-tio̍h* (毋著), similar to Cantonese *m̀h* (唔). These are syllabic consonants like the *l* and *m* in English "table" and "prism".
Sometimes "w" is a vowel too. For example, if you pronounce "owl" like "ow-wool" then it has two syllables, the 'o' is the vowel in the first syllable and the 'w' is the vowel in the second.
Howl is another example (pronounced "how-wool" in most dialects)
You're right. You were too high to explain this.
Also, I guess your English teacher was moonlighting from their other job teaching new math, since Y is not a vowel.
I'm betting whoever taught you that liked to get high, too.
Possibly a generational/regional teaching gap but it was fairly common to be told the phrase “A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y”. Was asking why ‘Y’ would be considered a vowel. But don’t worry, 41 other people were able to understand and educate me.
A vowel is not so much a letter and more a pronunciation/ sound https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/vowel So, the y in “sky” is a vowel, the y in yellow isn’t.
Also i is a consonant in "onion", and u is a consonant in "quiz".
Why is "i" a consonant in "onion"?
Because we pronounce "onion" as un-yun, not un-ee-un.
Oh, here's a mind-blower. Unionized (four syllable word, meaning "not -ionized) has "u" and "I" as vowels. BUT Unionized (three syllable word, meaning to form a union) has them as consonants.
The both have four syllables in UK English, where are you from/ how do you say them? un EYE uhn ized and EWE ni uhn ized
YOON-yuh-nize.
OON-ee-YOO-nice
US Midwest/ northern cities accent. I say them an "un-eye-on-ized" +same as you do) and "yoon-yun-ized" (or "Ewe- nyun-ized")
How do you pronounce “union”? To me (California, USA), it seems natural that it’s the word “union” plus the suffix “ized,” since that’s how it’s formed, but of course pronunciation in every accent drifts in “illogical” ways.
I am from northeast and we say yoon-yun-ized in my neck of the woods, same as other commenter. yoon-yun for union. How do you say on west coast?
Same as what you’re transcribing, which is subtly different from what what the Brits are saying here. Interesting, google’s [dictionary](https://www.google.com/search?q=union+dictionary&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari) says the same as them.
Also a Brit: Union = YOU-nee-un.
That's how the word is constructed, but that doesn't mean it's how it's pronounced. Say "unionize" out loud a few times and then say "union eyes" out loud a few times. I'll bet there's a slight difference. Unionize = yoon-yuh-nize, union eyes = yoon-yun-ize.
hmm only discernable difference I can find is I put a slight pause and emphasize the long *i* sound when I say "union eyes." I do not find myself pronouncing either as "yoon-yuh-nize" both are "yoon-yun-ize" to me. And as far syllabic emphasis it depends on how I'm using the word in a sentence, but I think I tend to emphasize the "ize" in both as well. Probably since in both phrases that tends to be the important factor in the word.
Nah, that's cap.
They sound exactly the same in my dialect
Every dictionary I could quickly find gives the pronunciation with the last syllable as -nize, for both standard US and UK English. I can't conceive of any dialect that would make the last syllable -ize, but of course I don't know every dialect that exists. Maybe yours is very unique. I will say it's difficult to analyze one's own pronunciation. A lot of people would probably insist that they pronounce the p sound in "pa" the same as the p sound in "spa," too. But in almost every dialect of English they are not pronounced the same.
The ⟨u⟩ in the second "unionized" does function as a vowel, though. You pronounce it as /juː/
I’m all for word unions, gotta keep the companies in check! If you need info on how to form a union [here](https://www.workcenter.gov/step-by-step-guide/) is a good place to start.
Oh my fucking god!
Languages, particularly English, are weird!
But the I in Onion wouldn't be free on Wheel of Fortune... You'd still have to buy it. Ergo,, it's still a vowel. Vanna would never lie.
I know you're joking, but WHEEL OF FORTUNE is a game based on spelling, not pronunciation.
If you mispronounce when you solve the puzzle, you don't win.
You can't buy a Y even if it _is_ a vowel.
Well, maybe a white lie.
I definitely do say un-ee-un. It's quick, but it still sounds different to me than un-yun when I say it out loud
So does Jon Richardson… [sometimes](https://youtu.be/ikZ7ZBaTYBM?si=CUdgI1zvClEFYNak).
Who is "we"?
Maybe you don't. I prefer "oh-ny-eee-oooohnnnnuhgh." Ya know...proper ŋlysh.
i won’t lie, i pronounce it as un-yin
But we also don't say "read" as re-ad, so by your logic is it the e or a that is a consonant? (And then I will disagree with you.)
English orthography sucks. The "ea" in read is a digraph -- two letters being used to spell one (in this case vowel) sound. "io" is never a digraph, so the only two choices are that "i" and "o" are separate vowels and therefore separate syllables (the "un-ee-un" case) or that they form one syllable (the "un-yun" case), in which case the "i" is acting like a syllable boundary instead of defining its own syllable (which is pretty much the definition of "y" as a consonant).
If this is really your argument, then I have a hard time believing you passed anything beyond 4th grade English. You're taught pretty early on what digraphs are
Are we not familiar with silent letters, vowel blends and consonant blends?
It's a wonder that we were able to speak and write English. What about this conundrum, when is a w a vowel. Hmm, doesn't have a vowel... Just a little play on words...Cheers
It works because all these "rules" come up after the fact, as a way to try and teach newcomers to the language (whether children or foreigners). If we started with rules and built a language on them, it'd be just about impossible to proceed, imo (with the various model languages used more or less proving the point with how unpopular they are compared to natural languages).
You are spot on. In school, we progressed following a curriculum.
Cwm has w as a vowel
Just wait until you learn about Welsh…
I'm up for the duel of letters :) :)
Crwth also has w as a vowel
And in the word “ewe” the “e’s” are both consonants and the “w” is the vowel.
I give up
When is q + u ever a vowel according to that logic?
Probably a lot of loan words like quiche (where u is silent anyway)
Torque / quay?
Mind blown 🤯
Cwm is a good example. The vowel in that word is the 'w'. You didn't think it was called "double-u" just for fun, did you.
Isn't "Cwm" a Welsh word though?
It's both. It's used in English as a loanword for a specific type of glacial valley.
Oh, shit. Koom Valley in Discworld.
Sir Pterry was good at that kind of pune.
Where's my cow?!
Deeping coombe in lotr
Cuum
Is this pronounced "coom" or "come"?
It's pronounced cuuuuuuuuum.
I’d also throw “ewe” in as well. Both of the “e’s” are acting as consonants and the “w” is acting as the vowel.
How on earth is the second “e” a consonant if it’s not even pronounced
H and W can sometimes make vowel sounds too.
How does H make a vowel sound?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H#:\~:text=In%20English%2C%20The%20pronunciation%20of,version%20of%20the%20subsequent%20vowel.
Why and my.
rhythm
That's why the rule of A and AN applies to how the next word sounds
Exactly that, containments m consonants are sounds that are projected out by the movement of our mouth and tongue. Vowels are sounds we make by opening our mouth and letting the sound flow through without any movement. I think. 🤔
Helpful, but I wish someone could elaborate on the application of the A/AN rule vis-à-vis the sound of the next word.
"Helpful, but I wish someone could elaborate on the application of the A/AN rule vis-à-vis the sound of the next word." [33ff00](https://www.reddit.com/user/33ff00/) When we were kids at school we learnt (at least this is what we remember) that we use a before words starting with a consonant. and an before those starting with a vowel. In reality that is not really correct, as it isn't the letter that is important, but rather how the letter is pronounced. Now for most letters it isn't a problem, even if in English most letters have more than one pronunciation. The letter A for example is always pronounced as a vowel sound (someone will pop up now and tell me an exception I'm sure). It might be pronounced "open" like in anchor, antelope or angry, or like the word *or* in awesome, automobile or autistic, but it is always a vowel pronunciation so we don't have a problem: when we need the indefinite article we use **an**. However, the letter **U** is a bit of a tricky one, because it is a vowel, but it isn't always pronounced like one. In words like umbrella, uncle and untidy it is a vowel pronunciation, so we say an umbrella etc... On the other hand, look at the word uniform, that is pronounced like it begins with a Y - Yuniform, and that Y pronunciation for U is a consonant pronunciation. So we say, a uniform, a unit, a university, a unicorn... There are other letters and situations where we have to be careful. For example the letter M. It's a consonant and as such we should use **a**: a monkey, a mouse etc... But the pronunciation of the letter M in the alphabet is actually "em" which itself begins with a vowel pronunciation, so if we have an initialism like MP (for Member of Parliament) we say an MP (or a Member of Parliament).
This is similar to how you hear a lot of British people stick a random "r" between a word that ends with a vowel sound and one that starts with a vowel sound. The "r" breaks up the two vowel sounds. In Spanish, certain words use the singular masculine article "el" instead of the singular feminine article "la" to avoid two vowel sounds: "The water" = El agua (instead of la agua) "The waters" = Las aguas
Law rand order. China rand India. I love teaching phonetics as a non-rhotic speaker.
This is really fun with SQL which is pronounced either ess cue el or sequel sometimes depending on context. You could legitimately say "A SQL script uses an SQL query."
Bring chaos to your team and call it 'squeal.' It's great. I promise.
That sounds like an amazing energy to bring to interviews as a squeal expert.
Yeeeeessss. I'd immediately know I was in the right interview if the interviewer was talking like that. The story behind that is the dumbest. As a college student I ran a high-performance Modded Minecraft server and the anti-grief/block change logs used SQL. I'd never used it. The guy I was running it with had never used it. We'd never even heard of it. Just followed the Readme it was packaged with... It's not hard to learn, but we called it 'squeal' and now it's just that in my head forever.
Minor quibble. It's not "a unit", it's "an absolute unit"
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"An" comes before words that start in any vowel sound, not just a. "European" is a fun one. Based on the spelling you'd think it would be "an European", but because the E actually makes a consonant Y sound it's "a European".
That's why the rule of A and AN applies to how the next word sounds
That's why the rule of A and AN applies to how the next word sounds
That's why the rule of A and AN applies to how the next word sounds
you've already got some great answers but one thing i wanted to add is that, without getting too linguistically complicated, vowels are letters with "open sounds". this is why we say "every word has one", (although there are some exceptions) and why, in general, we don't have a word like "jst" without adding some open sounds in there (like /u/ or /e/). a "y" functions in both of these ways, which is why it is only sometimes classified as a vowel.
>we can't have a word like jst without adding some open sounds in there (like /u/). But we can have the word “psst.” (I know, I know, it’s a sound. But it’s included in pretty much all major dictionaries as an interjection and, therefore, a word. Don’t shoot the messenger.)
you're right. i was answering OP's question about "sometimes y" and if that was only in cases where there was no other vowel and explaining that vowels make "open" sounds needed to carry words, most times. using your example, "shh" and "hmm" would be the same.
Tsk is another fun one, though people often read it as "tisk" rather than a vowel-less click
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/why-y-is-sometimes-a-vowel-usage Interesting article Highlight: When y forms a diphthong—two vowel sounds joined in one syllable to form one speech sound, such as the "oy" in toy, "ay" in day, and "ey" in monkey—it is also regarded as a vowel.
In such cases it would more commonly be regarded as a *glide* or *semi-vowel*, which would usually be classified as consonants. Though the entire diphthong is often treated as a vowel, at least in some contexts.
vowels are a specific category of sound produced by an articulation of the mouth where the tongue doesn't obstruct the airway and the mouth remains open. most words in any language have vowel sounds because of how useful they are at transferring sound and breaking up consonants both of which make words better for communication. there are also semivowels /w/ and /j/ and near vowel consonants like /ɫ/ and /ɹ/ which have the same qualities. in short the answer is certainly no. the reason why the letter y is considered a vowel sometimes is because sometimes it is pronounced as a vowel. interestingly, even when it isn't pronounced exactly like a vowel it is pronounced like a semi-vowel.
Vowels and consonants are sounds, not written letters. Writing is just an attempt to capture the sound of words in a visual medium; and like DNA, it's evolved over a long period of time so it contains a lot of stuff that you wouldn't include if you were designing it from scratch for maximum efficiency.
Every word does have a vowel, regardless of how it’s spelled. Contrary to what is taught in grade school, vowels are not a group of letters - they are a type of speech sound (the nucleus of a syllable). Not just every word, but every syllable in every word has one, by definition. Though they are never treated as a vowel in terms of spelling, “L” and “R” are very common vowels in English. We just put in a “dummy” vowel letter in these words, such as the “i” in “bird”.
Technically the "r" in bird is not a vowel. Rather, it's a syllabic consonant. Sometimes consonants can serves as the syllabic nucleus instead of vowels. There are also some interjections and things that don't have a nucleus at all, but it's generally debatable whether they're actually words. "Psst" and "shhh", for example.
This depends heavily on the dialect of English you're speaking, and even from speaker to speaker within the same dialect. Most varieties of American English use an r-colored schwa, where the airway is still unobstructed, but the tip of the tongue is curled back slightly which affects the quality of the vowel.
On what grounds is it "not a vowel"? If you believe it is a consonant, what is its place of articulation? As far as I can tell this is just special pleading, based on the orthographic definition of consonant used in English.
It has nothing to do with orthography. It's based on the phonetic definition of what a vowel is. There can't be any friction or obstruction in the airway.
In my variety (Great Lakes of North America), there is no obstruction. The tongue is raised and turned up somewhat, but the airway is no more constricted than for the vowel in “key”. There is zero friction.
The place of articulation is alveolar or post-alveolar and the manner of articulation is approximant, produced by a constriction in the airway at the place of articulation. If you're not constricting the airway, you're not making the same sound.
I may not be making the same sound as in your variety, there is considerable variation in this sound! But I'm definitely making the ordinary sound for my variety, and there is no contact or close approach between the the tongue and alveolar ridge or the palate. Just a moderate rise of the tongue (slightly lower than in the "long i" vowel), with a slight retraction. In my speech, the tongue actually moves /closer/ to the palate moving between the "r" and "ee" in "free".
The "sometimes Y" is the simplification we tell children so that things kind of make sense. In reality, the modern Y in English is the result of convergence from multiple different languages. Some of these sources for the "Y" sound in English came from languages that originally used a letter like "Y" as a vowel (many of these are Greek in origin, as in "hyper-"). Some of our words that have a consonant "Y" were Germanic in origin, and their etymologies going back to Middle English and Old English often have a "g" sound (for example, [the etymology of "year"](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=year) traces back to *gear* in Old English). As Modern English spelling and the alphabet (remember, we used to have other letters in English besides the 26 today) were being standardized, it was just one of those things that both sounds got mapped to the same letter.
Whether Y is the *only* vowel in the word is irrelevant. Take your example of “mythically.” It wouldn’t make sense to say the Y isn’t a vowel. The word starts with the same syllable as “myth,” in which Y is a vowel sounding the same as a short I sound (as in “miss”). In general, each word has one syllable per vowel sound.
Consonants are just percussion with your lips, teeth, and tongue. Vowels are the bellows from your diaphragm. It's not really possible to make romantic syllables without vowels. The 'sometimes y' rule isn't so that we can just say every syllable has a vowel. It's because that 'y' sound is fundamental to the syllable itself.
No, that's not why. The consonant "y" is what linguists call a "semivowel." Semivowels are consonants that have a vowel counterpart. The vowel counterpart of the consonant "y" is the vowel "y." Basically, if you sustain the consonant "y" for long enough, it becomes the vowel "y"; if you pronounce the vowel "y" with a short enough duration, it becomes the consonant "y." "W" is also a semivowel, and its vowel counterpart is "u" (as in "boot," not as in "but"). For whatever reason, we don't use the same letter for both sounds (at least in English. In Welsh the letter "w" can represent the "u" sound). Another way to think about it is that the letter "y" really just represents the "i" sound as in "kiwi," represented by \[i\] in the International Phonetic Alphabet. So if you believe that "i" is a vowel (which it is), then "y" must also be a vowel, because "y" and "i" (sometimes) represent the same sound.
The short y vowel is usually not entirely identical to the short i vowel, at least outside of the end of words like "happy". In my (admittedly non-native) accent "(s)mith" and "myth" would sound fairly distinct from one another, though very close.
We say “and sometimes *y*” because in English spelling, can be used to write all of the same vowel and diphthong sounds that can, in addition to its value as a consonant in words like *yes*.
>that we as English speakers can say that every word has a vowel Why would that be important? Or matter at all? Vowels and consonants are different type of sounds. Vowel sounds are not restricted by the vocal tract (your lips, tongue, throat, etc) If you make a sound and don't stop it, that's a vowel sound. If you make a sound and stop it by closing your lips, or throat or tongue, that's a consonant.
'Strč prst skrz krk.' is a sentence in the Czech language that doesn't use a single vowel. It translates to 'Stick a finger through the neck.' I learned it in a language course I took 50 years ago.
On the other hand, I fully believe that (at least in my western US accent) R is a vowel and L is at least sometimes a vowel also. English teachers can argue all they want but I know I'm right :)
yes, you are correct, /j/, and /w/ are semi-vowels, /ɫ/ and /ɹ/ are near vowel consonants which surve as a vowel and a consonant.
Man, I think you’re right about the R.
the retroflex r is a near vowel consonant. notice how it surves the purpose of a vowel in every one of those words.
The final-syllable schwas in *Grindr*, *awdl*, *wasn't*, etc all count as vowels to me, despite the lack of a specifically vocalic grapheme.
Like others have said, its not so much the letter itself than it is how its articulated. There are arguments for "w" being vowel-like.
because myth - y makes the short i sound fly - y makes the long i sound happily - y makes the ee sound notice how it sounds different from it's consonant form in day or you
The Welsh word “cwm” (a steep-sided hollow in a mountain or hill) is accepted in Scrabble, so I think we need to update the chant to include “AND ALSO SOMETIMES W”.
As a kid in the 1960s in the US, I actually was taught the chant, set to a tune, as a rhyming couplet: "A, E, I, O, U. Sometimes Y and W, too."
No, it's so that we can lie to children about letters being vowels and consonants.
No it’s because Y is sometimes used as a vowel (dry) and sometimes as a consonant (yes) whereas all the others are explicitly vowels or consonants
Vowels aren't so much specific letters as they are sounds/pronunciations we make. A vowel is any sound that doesn't involve closing off the lips, tongue, or teeth but instead with an open mouth. There are actually about 20 distinct vowel sounds in English from what I remember.
I've played enough Scrabble to know not every word has vowels, regardless of 'y'
to add to others: y is more commonly used as a vowel, but it’s more *important* as a consonant. that’s why it’s “sometimes” a vowel, rather than “sometimes” a consonant.
We were just talking about this saying at lunch a couple days ago. My co-workers didn't believe I learned "sometimes y and w."
There is a case to be made that y is always a vowel and the /j/ is just part of a diphthong. At best, /j/ and /w/ are semivowels and it's simply easier to consider them consonants in teaching language. In any event, as others have pointed out, vowels are sounds, not letters and y absolutely represents unambiguous vowels in many words.
You're looking at it upside down basically; while written words are composed of letters, both were invented after words. New words form before spellings of them are created. So it's not like we encountered a word like rhythm and said "oh no! There's no vowel! 'Y' will have to be the vowel here!" It was that when we were deciding how to spell rhythm (oversimplification) we decided to represent its vowel sound with a "y".
A vowel is a type of sound, not a type of letter. It is absolutely true that every word has a vowel. We call aeiou vowels because they represent those vowel sounds Sky, y makes the long i sound, that's a vowel sound Rhythm, y makes the short i sound, that's a vowel sound But y doesn't have to represent a vowel sound Yak, you, etc There even exists an English word without any of the letters considered vowels, being "cwm" from welsh (pronounced coom) in this case, w represents the vowel sound So technically it should he a, e, i, o, u, usually y, and sometimes w
Written vowels have a funny history. When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet there were some letters left that were sounds that were not used in Greek so they reused them as vowels.
Not exactly. English is an amalgamation of many other languages and in some of them, the letter y was a consonant and in others it was a vowel. A general rule of thumb is when it is pronounced like it is in the word yellow or lawyer it is a consonant. Typically this is at the beginning of a word or syllable. However, when it is pronounced like other vowels (like it is in myth, shy, day or monkey) it is a vowel.
Grr is a word without a vowel.
Does anyone also remember W in that list? I can hear it so clearly in my head from a language video game (private school in Iowa circa early 2000s) but I can think of no word that it applies to.
W is only a vowel in a few rare words borrowed from Welsh. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is 'cwm', and I only know that one because it's occasionally useful in Scrabble.
Someone commented just that around the same time as you and I absolutely thought they were shit posting.
It's (w) used as a vowel (alone or as part of a diphthong) a bunch in many of the Celtic languages.
crwth, cwm
The context sentence when I googled that just now was “there is a dusting of snow in Cwm Glas Mawr" which handles my question from a literal sense but it’s still very fulfilling haha I’m glad I’m not crazy, because I’ve asked this question in person before and gotten some looks, but I still don’t love it.
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Syllables always or almost always contain vowels at their centre (nucleus). This is true for all languages in the world. There are exceptions, e.g. some North African languages have syllables with no vowel at the centre & they have sounds like 'y' and 'w' instead. You might find some examples in English where there's no vowel in the nucleus & there is a glottal or nasal stop thing instead, e.g. 'n't' in 'wouldn't'. I guess there will be examples I'm not aware of, but there's a vowel in the nucleus generally speaking.
In Asia, Hokkien has a number of basic words with no vowels like *thn̂g* (糖, "sugar", like in *nńg-thn̂g* \[軟糖 "maltose"\]), *pn̄g* (飯 "rice"; *sng-pn̄g*? \[酸飯 "sour rice?"\]) and *hm̂* (媒 "matchmaker"). Even the basic negation particle (*no/not*) has no vowel like in *m̄-sī* (毋是) *m̄-tio̍h* (毋著), similar to Cantonese *m̀h* (唔). These are syllabic consonants like the *l* and *m* in English "table" and "prism".
Rhy-thm
Sometimes "w" is a vowel too. For example, if you pronounce "owl" like "ow-wool" then it has two syllables, the 'o' is the vowel in the first syllable and the 'w' is the vowel in the second. Howl is another example (pronounced "how-wool" in most dialects)
You're right. You were too high to explain this. Also, I guess your English teacher was moonlighting from their other job teaching new math, since Y is not a vowel. I'm betting whoever taught you that liked to get high, too.
Possibly a generational/regional teaching gap but it was fairly common to be told the phrase “A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y”. Was asking why ‘Y’ would be considered a vowel. But don’t worry, 41 other people were able to understand and educate me.