Vowel

A **vowel** is a particular kind of speech sound made by changing the shape of the upper vocal tract, or the area in the mouth above the tongue. A vowel letter is a letter of an alphabet that represents a vowel sound.

In English, five letters in the alphabet are usually called the vowel letters. The sounds of English are written with letters in the English alphabet, as either vowels or consonants. All English words are written with vowel letters in them.

These letters are vowels in English:
- A, E, I, O and U (and sometimes Y)

It is said that Y is "sometimes" a vowel because it can either be spoken with a vowel or consonant sound, depending on the word. In the words _cry_, _sky_, _fly_, _my_ and _why_, the letter Y represents the vowel sound /**aɪ**/. In words like _myth_ and _synchronize_, it represents the vowel sound /ɪ/. In words like _only_, _quickly_, and _folly_, it represents the vowel sound /i/.

The letter Y can also be a consonant sound called a _glide_ as in the beginning of these words: _yellow_, _yacht_, _yam_, _yesterday_. Y is a consonant about 2.5% of the time, and a vowel about 97.5% of the time.

The letter W can sometimes be the second part of a vowel sound, as in words such as _cow_, _bow_, or _how_. In these words, the vowel has the sound of /**aʊ**/. The letter W can be used as a consonant sound at the beginning of in the words _when_, _where_, _wet_. In some languages, like Welsh, the letter W represents the vowel sound /**ʊ**/, like in the word _cwm_ (a kind of valley; pronounced “coom"). A few of these words may be borrowed in English, with the W representing its vowel sound.

In written English, the vowel letters are used to represent the 13-15 vowel **sounds** (depending on the variety) in English. This means there are many more vowel sounds than letters in the English alphabet, and the English spelling system does not always show readers which sound a vowel letter represents in a word. This can cause confusion for people learning the English language.
- The rest of the letters of the alphabet are consonants:
- B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y and Z (and sometimes A, E, I, O and U)

## Monophthongs and diphthongs

Simple vowels are called monophthongs. The letters, like /**ɪ**/, are the IPA letters for each vowel **sound** in English. (The IPA is the **International Phonetic Alphabet**). In the IPA, each symbol represents a different sound, so using the IPA is helpful in pronouncing words.

Common monophthongs in English (these are for General American English) include:
- /**i**/ as in _police_, _feet_, meat, _eat_, and _silly_
- /**ɪ**/ as in _it_, _sit_, _kick_, _myth_ and _bitter_
- /**ɛ**/ as in _end_, _bet_, _less_, and _letter_
- /**æ**/ as in _at_, _apple_, _fat_, and _matter_
- /**u**/ as in _cool_, _tune_, _soup_, and _kung_ _fu,_
- /**ʊ**/ as in _cook_, _should_, _pudding_, _foot, and rook_
- /**ʌ**/ as in _bus_, _blood_, _come_, and _up_
- /**ə**/ as in _kingdom_, _photography_, _philosophy_, _ketchup_, and _hundred_
- /**ɚ**/ as in _butter_, _collar_, _flavor_, _firm_, and _burst_
- /**ɔ**/ as in _all_, _fought_, _hot_, and _bot_
- /**ɑ**/ as in _father_, _walk_, _arm_, _heart_, _wasp_, _lager_, _envelope_ and _aardvark_

Diphthongs are a combination of two different vowel sounds, one vowel sounds turns into another sound as you say them. If you pronounce the words below slowly, you can hear the two vowel sounds of the diphthongs.

Common diphthongs in English include:
- /**eɪ**/ as in _ate_, _reign_, _vain_, _flavor_, _slay_, and _convey_
- /**oʊ**/ as in _toe_, _row_, _go_, _boat_, _mode_, and _chateau_
- /**aɪ**/ as in _eye_, _I_, _pie_, _cry_, _cypher_, _climb_, _lime_, _light_, _kayak_, _Thai_, and _height_
- /**aʊ**/ as in _loud_, _house_, _cow_, _about_, _Daoism_, and _Macau_
- /**oɪ**/ as in _boy_, _moist_, and _Freud_

Like other languages, there are many dialects of English, and different dialects often use different vowel sounds. But the IPA symbols can tell us which vowel sound a dialects uses. For example, some American English speakers differentiate between the vowels in the words _cot_ and _caught_, while in other dialects these words are homophones. People who study the differences between the dialects of English often study the different way vowel sounds are pronounced.

The difference between the way English is spelled and the way the words are pronounced came about because all languages change, so spoken English changes, but the spelling system does not.

The study of speech sounds is called phonetics.

## Related pages

- Orthography
- Dialect
- Diphthong