Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract, in contrast to consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. The word ''vowel'' comes from the Latin word ''vocalis'', meaning "uttering voice" or "speaking". Vowels usually form the peak or nucleus of a syllable, whereas consonants form the onset and coda. However, some languages allow sounds that wouldn't normally be classified as vowels to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the sound of ''m'' in the English language word ''prism'', or the sound of ''r'' in the Czech language word ''vrba'' (meaning "willow"). Sometimes vowels are defined by whether they form the nucleus of a syllable, and by that criterion these sounds ''are'' vowels, but usually sounds that can form the nucleus of a syllable are called sonorants. (In some languages, such as Tashlhyt Berber and Oowekyala, non-sonorant consonants can also form the nucleus of a syllable.) ==Vowel qualities== The articulatory features that distinguish different vowels in a language are said to determine the vowel's ''quality''. Daniel Jones (phonetician) developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the common features height, backness and roundedness. There are however still more possible features of vowel quality. ===Height=== Vowel height refers to the position of the tongue relative to the roof of the mouth. In high vowels, such as [close front unrounded vowel] and [close back rounded vowel], the tongue is positioned high in the mouth, whereas in low vowels, such as [open front unrounded vowel], the tongue is positioned low in the mouth. Sometimes the terms ''open'' and ''close'' are used as synonyms for ''low'' and ''high'' for describing vowels. The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies seven different vowel heights, although no known language distinguishes all seven: *open vowel (low vowel) *near-open vowel *open-mid vowel *mid vowel *close-mid vowel *near-close vowel *close vowel (high vowel) ===Backness=== Vowel backness refers to the tongue position during the articulation of a vowel relative to the back of the mouth. In front vowels, such as [i], the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth, whereas in back vowels, such as [u], the tongue is positioned towards the back of the mouth. The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies five different degrees of vowel backness, although no known language distinguishes all five: *front vowel *near-front vowel *central vowel *near-back vowel *back vowel ===Roundedness=== Vowel roundedness refers to whether the lips are rounded, or not. In most languages, roundedness is just an additional feature of back vowels, and not a distinctive feature. However, some languages distinguish roundedness and backness separately, such as French, German, and some dialects of English. Different kinds of rounded vowels are also possible, as in Swedish (language), which has "pursed lips" rounded vowels as well as "compressed lips" rounded vowels. ===Nasalization=== Nasal vowel refers to whether some of the air escapes through the nose. In nasal vowels, the velum is lowered, and some air travels through the nasal cavity as well as the mouth. An oral vowel is a vowel in which all air escapes through the mouth. French language and Portuguese language contrast nasal and oral vowels. ===Tenseness/checked vowels vs. free vowels=== Tenseness is used to describe the opposition of ''tense vowels'' as in ''leap'', ''suit'' vs. ''lax vowels'' as in ''lip'', ''soot''. This opposition is thought to be a result of greater muscular tension, though this has not been confirmed by phonetic experiments. Unlike the other features of vowel quality, tenseness is only applicable to the few languages that have this opposition (mainly Germanic languages, e.g. English language), whereas the vowels of the other languages (e.g. Spanish language) cannot be described with respect to tenseness in any meaningful way. In most Germanic languages, lax vowels can only occur in closed syllables. Therefore, they're also known as checked vowels, whereas the tense vowels are called free vowels since they can occur in open syllables. ===Phonation=== Phonation describes whether the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation of a vowel. Most languages only have voiced vowels, but several Native American languages, such as Cheyenne language and Totonac language, contrast voiced and devoiced vowels. Vowels are devoiced in whispered speech. In Japanese language and Quebec French, vowels that are between voiceless consonants are often devoiced. Creaky voice, breathy voice, and murmured voice are phonation types that are used contrastively in some languages. Often, these co-occur with tonal language or stress patterns; in the Mon language, vowels pronounced in "high tone" are also produced with creaky voice. In cases like this, it can be unclear whether it is the tone, the voicing type, or the pairing of the two that is being used for phonemic contrast. ===Tongue root retraction=== Retracted tongue root is a feature common in some groups of African languages. This contrast is used extensively in Maa language and other East African languages. The contrast between advanced tongue root and retracted tongue root resembles the lax/tense contrast acoustically, but they are articulated differently. ===Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract=== Pharyngealisation occurs in some languages; Sedang language uses this contrast. ==Prosody== The features of vowel prosody are often described independently from vowel quality. In non-linear phonetics, they are located on parallel layers. The features of vowel prosody are usually considered not to apply to the vowel itself, but to the syllable. ===Length=== Vowel length or quantity refers to the duration of the vowel. Note that this feature may also be described as a feature of the vowel quality, not of the prosody. Japanese language, Arabic language and Latin have a two-way contrast between short and long vowels. Estonian language and Wichita language have a three-way contrast among short, half-long, and long vowels. Long vowels are written in the International Phonetic Alphabet with a triangular colon, which has two equilateral triangles pointing at each other in place of dots (e.g. [iː]). The IPA symbol for half-long vowels is the triangular colon without the lower triangle (e.g. [iˑ]). ===Intonation=== Intonation refers to the pitch (music) of a syllable. This feature depends on the syntax. In the tonal languages the intonation depends additionally on the morphology. ===Stress=== Lexical stress refers to the emphasis given to a syllable. ==Monophthongs, diphthongs, triphthongs== A vowel sound whose quality doesn't change over the duration of the vowel is called a monophthong. Monophthongs are sometimes called "pure" or "stable" vowels. A vowel sound that glides from one quality to another is called a diphthong, and a vowel sound that glides between three qualities is a triphthong. All languages have monophthongs and many languages have diphthongs, but triphthongs or vowel sounds with even more target qualities are relatively rare cross-linguistically. English has all three types: the vowel sound in ''hit'' is a monophthong [ɪ], the vowel sound in ''boy'' is in most dialects a diphthong [ɔɪ], and the vowel sounds of ''way'' [weɪ], ''flower'' (British English [aʊə] American English [aʊɚ]) form a triphthong, although the particular qualities vary by dialect. In phonology, diphthongs and triphthongs are distinguished from sequences of monophthongs by whether or not the vowel sound may be analyzed into different phonemes or not. For example, the vowel sounds in a two-syllable pronunciation of the word ''flower'' (British English [flaʊə] American English [flaʊɚ]) phonetically form a triphthong, but are phonologically a sequence of a diphthong (represented by the letters ) and a monophthong (represented by the letters ). Some linguists use the terms ''diphthong'' and ''triphthong'' only in this phonemic sense. ==Written vowels== The name "vowel" is often used for the symbols used for representing vowel sounds in a language's writing system, particularly if the language uses an alphabet. In the Latin alphabet, the vowel letters are usually ''A'', ''E'', ''I'', ''O'', ''U'', and in some languages ''Y'', as in English and ''W'', as in Welsh language. There is necessarily not a direct one-to-one correspondence between the vowel sounds of a language and the vowel letters. Many languages that use a form of the Latin alphabet have more vowel sounds than can be represented by the standard set of five vowel letters. In the case of English, the five primary vowel letters can represent both ''long'' and ''short'' vowel sounds (some of the long vowel sounds in English are actually diphthongs). Furthermore, in English some vowel sounds are represented by combinations of vowel letters, such as the ''ea'' in ''beat'' or by a vowel letter and an approximant letter, as the ''ow'' in ''how'', or the ''er'' in ''her''. Other languages cope with the limitation in the number of Latin vowel letters in similar ways. Many languages, like English, make extensive use of combinations of vowel letters to represent various sounds. Other languages add diacritical marks to vowels, such as accents or umlauts, to represent the variety of possible vowel sounds. Some languages have also constructed additional vowel letters by modifying the standard Latin vowels in other ways, such as ''�'' or ''�'' that are found in some of the Scandinavian languages. The International Phonetic Alphabet has a set of 28 symbols to represent the range of basic vowel qualities, and a further set of diacritics to denote variations from the basic vowel. ==Vowels in languages== The semantic significance of vowels varies widely depending on the language. In some languages, particularly Semitic languages, vowels mostly serve to denote inflections. This is similar to English ''man'' vs. ''men''. In fact, the alphabets used to write the Semitic languages, such as the Hebrew alphabet and the Arabic alphabet, do not ordinarily mark all the vowels. These alphabets are called abjads. Although it is possible to construct simple English sentences that can be understood without written vowels (cn y rd ths?), extended passages of English lacking written vowels are difficult if not impossible to completely understand (consider dd, which could be any of ''add, aided, dad, dada, dead, deed, did, died, dodo, dud, dude, eddie, iodide,'' or ''odd''). In most languages, vowels are an unchangeable part of the words, as in English ''man'' vs. ''moon'' which are not different inflectional forms of the same word, but different words. Vowels are especially important to the structures of words in languages that have very few consonants (like Polynesian languages such as Maori language and Hawaiian language), and in languages whose inventory of vowels is larger than its inventory of consonants (like Sedang language, a relative of Vietnamese language, which contrasts 55 different vowel qualities). ===Vowel systems=== Most languages have 3–7 vowels, the following 5-vowel system being the most common: {| border="0" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="4" width="100px" |align="left" width="50%"| close front unrounded vowel |align="right" width="50%"| close back rounded vowel |- |align="right"| close-mid front unrounded vowel |align="left"| close-mid back rounded vowel |- |colspan="2" align="center"| open front unrounded vowel |} This particular configuration is common because it makes the most efficient use of the vowel space, so slight variations in a vowel are not easily confused for a different sound. Spanish language and Modern Greek language, for example, have this vowel system; Latin had a similar system that also distinguished between long and short vowels, although that distinction wasn't made in written Latin; it is for this reason that the Latin alphabet has five vowel letters. All languages have at least two vowels; the Tshwizhyi and Abzhui dialects of Abkhaz language contrasts only /a/ and /i/, with significant allophone. (Some linguists claim that it is possible to posit only ''one'' vowel in some Abkhaz dialects, though the consensus seems to be that that is stretching things a bit.) Three-vowel systems have been noted in a number of languages. These include: * {''i'', ''a'', ''u''} (Arabic language, Inuktitut language, Quechua), * {''i'', ''a'', ''o''} (Pirah� language), * {''i'', ''e'', ''a''} (Wichita language). A few languages, such as Navajo language, have four-vowel systems that lack /u/ but there is no known natural language that lacks some form of ''a''. At the other end of the spectrum, languages with more than twelve vowels are relatively uncommon, although some widely-spoken languages have large vowel inventories, particularly Germanic languages. For example, English language has 14–16 vowels (including diphthongs) depending on dialect, and Swedish language has the most distinct vowel qualities in the height-backness-roundedness spectrum, with 17 different monophthongs. French has 16 vowel qualities (including nasals), and the previously-mentioned Sedang language holds the known record with 55 different vowels. ==Written vowels in different writing systems== * Arabic alphabet: دَ دِ دُ دَ‌ا دَ‌ى دِ‌ي دُ‌و * Korean alphabet: ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ * Russian alphabet: hard: А О У Ы Э ; soft: Я Ё Ю И Е * Japanese language#Writing system: normal: あいうえお　grammatical: へを ==See also== *list of phonetics topics *table of vowels *list of vowels ==References== * ''Handbook of the International Phonetic Association'', 1999. Cambridge University ISBN 0521637511 * Johnson, Keith, ''Acoustic & Auditory Phonetics'', second edition, 2003. Blackwell ISBN 1405101237 * Peter Ladefoged, ''A Course in Phonetics'', fourth edition, 2000. Heinle ISBN 0155073192 * Ladefoged, Peter, ''Elements of Acoustic Phonetics'', 1995. University of Chicago ISBN 0226467643 * Ladefoged, Peter and Ian Maddieson, ''The Sounds of the Worlds Languages'', 1996. Blackwell ISBN 0631198156 * Ladefoged, Peter, ''Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages'', 2000. Blackwell ISBN 0631214127 ==External links== * [http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/vowels/contents.html Vowels and Consonants] Online examples from Ladefoged's ''Vowels and Consonants'', referenced above. * [http://www.oneletterwords.com Dictionary of All-Vowel Words]: a free online dictionary with over 1,000 words with no consonants and examples of usage from literature. Vowel

Vowel

==formants== Great page! but - needs some information on the frequency structure of vowels, formant frequencies etc. User:Emmjade 13:03 29 Jun 2003 (UTC) : I second the motion. Info about vowel formants ''needed''. - User:Ish ishwar 01:52, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC) ==latin== Latin had five vowels? Sorry, but no. Even if you ignore the length distinction (or the tense/lax distinction, however you want to interpret it), Latin still had a sixth cardinal vowel: y. -User:Branddobbe 23:41, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC) :What was the value of y in Latin? User:Nohat 22:12, 2004 May 8 (UTC) ==triphthong examples== ''the vowel sound in fire is a triphthong'' Is there a better example of a triphthong? Some of us do pronounce our ''r''s, which I think would make the last sound a sonorant but not a vowel. User:Markalexander100 03:07, 13 May 2004 (UTC) :post-vocalic R's in rhotic dialects are rhotacized vowels. It's a triphthong in British and American English, although not in some dialects of southern american. User:Nohat 14:34, 2004 May 13 (UTC) Ah, fair enough. User:Markalexander100 01:44, 14 May 2004 (UTC) : How many syllables do you think fire has - I think I have two in my (British) accent - and that it ends in schwa. User:Secretlondon 07:01, 30 May 2004 (UTC) :: 1 or 2 syllables (depending on your method for counting them), but 3 vowel sounds. User:Nohat 21:51, 2004 May 31 (UTC) Triphthong says a triphthong is monosyllabic. Somewhere, we must be over-generalising. User:Markalexander100 00:32, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC) :The problem is that in certain phonological analyses of English, words like "fire" and "jail" constitute just a single so-called super-heavy syllable, which many people perceive as being two syllables when the pronounce the word in isolation or citation form. It's complicated, because in normal speech those words function like other monosyllabic words. From a phonetic point of view, diphthongs and triphthongs are just connected series of vowels; the status of the number of syllables doesn't play into the phonetic definition of diphthongs and triphthongs. However, when you start getting into phonology, the distinction between series of vowels in separate syllables and monosyllabic diphthongs and triphthongs becomes important. From a purely phonetic point of view, there is no distinction, and languages that do distinguish them use cues like hiatus and lengthening to distinguish between diphthongs and series of vowels. User:Nohat 23:10, 2004 Jun 1 (UTC) :: Since the above have problems with English examples, why not choose another language for example? I have put some info about vowels in Vietnamese language. - User:Ish ishwar 01:54, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC) :: Or the Dutch language? - User: Karl Palmen 2005 Jan 28 09:00 (UTC) ==Request for references== Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles Wikipedia:Cite sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check has more information. Thank you, and please [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Taxman&action=edit§ion=new leave me a message] when you have added a few references to the article. - User:Taxman 20:00, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC) ==Pending nomination for defeaturing== This article does not meet featured article criteria on the following counts: * There is an unattributed statement (Some linguists claim that it is possible to posit only one vowel in some Abkhaz dialects....)Do those linguists have names? * There are no references. Make wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world and add references. There is also no policy that says the reference criteria is not retroactive. It has been more than a year since that requirement was added, and more than a month since User:Taxman made his request. * The section on vowels is inadequate: How about Armenian alphabet, Burmese alphabet, or Greek alphabet; for Japanese there are too few characters)? Why is there Russian alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet? Thanks. Please leave me a message when these points are addressed. If not all of these points are addressed, I, User:Michelle T, will nominate this article at WP:FARC on June 15, 2005. User:Michelle T 21:34, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) :: re alphabets: why do alphabets need to be discussed in an article on vowels? are all languages with writing systems going to have their characters listed here? would this help us understand what vowels are anyway? i would think that this section could simply be removed. thoughts on this? peace – User:Ish_ishwar User_talk:Ish_ishwar 05:04, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC) :::Well an article on vowels should discuss how they are used in various languages, and how their usage varies across languages. - User:Taxman ^{User talk:Taxman} 07:15, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Vowel

Phonetics

See other meanings of words starting from letter:

V

Words begining with Vowel:

Vowel
Vowel
Vowel
Vowels
Vowels
Vowels
Vowel_alternation
Vowel_backness
Vowel_dimension
Vowel_gradation
Vowel_harmony
Vowel_harmony
Vowel_harmony_languages
Vowel_height
Vowel_length
Vowel_length
Vowel_line
Vowel_line
Vowel_mark
Vowel_mark
Vowel_merger
Vowel_point
Vowel_point
Vowel_reduction
Vowel_rotation
Vowel_roundedness
Vowel_Shift
Vowel_shift
Vowel_sound
Vowel_space
Vowel_stem
Vowel_stems