Questions tagged [vowels]
Vowels sounds in English.
260 questions
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Whence came the different varieties of the "long i" diphthong?
What is the origin of “long long i” before voiced consonants (the [ai] of wide, while, & tribe) versus “short long i” before unvoiced consonants (the [ʌi] of white, wife, & wipe)? When did ...
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Any rule for pronouncing “e”?
I hear three different sounds for the letter e in precious, bean, and Peru.
Is there a rule that covers the different pronunciations that a written letter e can represent in speech?
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What is the difference between /ʊ/ and /ʌ/ in British English?
/ʌ/ cut, hut, bun, nothing, love, enough, flood, does
/ʊ/ put, soot, foot, good, look, cook
To me the ʌ is a more short, low front (unrounded?) vowel, but the vowel /ʊ/ which sounds like "uh" is a ...
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Where did "sorry" get its vowel sound?
Sorry has two pronunciations in my dictionary: ˈsärē and ˈsôrē. The first is the one I am interested in because, as someone pointed out to me, the or pattern in English is nearly always pronounced as "...
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Why do I have a different vowel in "scarf" than I have in "scarves", and how come nobody talks about this?
So in my opinion, scarves is pronounced as the dictionary has it: with a Short O or /a/.
But I believe that scarf and other "ar" words that are followed by voiceless consonants, are not actually ...
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Vowel in "-ang" and "-ank" Words: Pronunciation and Dictionary Transcription
Has anyone found the vowel in "-ang" and "-ank" words transcribed differently than /æ/? The sound, to my ear, is not the same as the /æ/ sound in words like "ran." I hear ...
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When did "legend" stop being pronounced "LEE-gend"?
Nowadays, we pronounce the word legend as "LEDGE-end" (IPA: /ˈlɛdʒənd/). But it looks like at least some people used to pronounce "legend" as "LEE-gend." In A General Dictionary of the English ...
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Yod coalescence across words - only with "you(r(s))"?
I'm asking specifically about Yod* coalescence when connecting two words together.
Some very (neat) phenomenon in American English is to "fuse" you/r/s when the word ends in t/d/z:
I was thinking ...
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Distinctive features of English diphthongs
I am looking for a table of distinctive features for English dipthongs along the lines of that available for other vowels here. I don't trust my purely book learned linguistic skills to produce an ...
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How Many Diphthongs Are There In English?
I was talking to a person who said that there were only two. I think she said that the "ou" in house is one of the two.
I told her that the way the letter "i" is pronounced is a diphthong, and she ...
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The pronunciation of 'Hawaii'
Apparently some parts of the US routinely pronounce the name of our island state as 'Hawaya.'
At first, I thought this was just incorrect, but apparently it's a regional usage. Where do they call it ...
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The pronunciation of "ate"
I was talking to some friends and I said "I ate (/et/) chocolate yesterday...". Then my friend corrected me: "you ate (/eit/) chocolate...". I repeated my sentence with the /eit/ pronunciation and we ...
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Why do we pronounce a long second vowel in "decide", but a short second vowel in "decision"?
The "i" in decide is pronounced [aɪ], whereas the first "i" in decision is pronounced [ɪ], at least in American English. The same with pairs like collide/collision, divide/division, etc., despite the ...
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Why is "salient" pronounced with a "long a" sound?
The word salient is pronounced with a "long a" sound; Wiktionary gives the US pronunciation as /ˈseɪ.ljənt/, /ˈseɪ.li.ənt/. Is there any reason why the vowel letter here receives its "long" ...
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Pronunciation of “tour”
Is the following pronunciation of the word “tour” attested in any common dialect of British English?
[tɔ˞]
This is approximately how I, a native British English speaker, pronounce it. However, it’s ...
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Is the /æ/ sound always same?
I have an issue with the /æ/ sound. There is no such vowel sound in my native language, which is Russian, so it's quite problematic for me to master this sound. The main problem is I can't even HEAR ...
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Name for words with same consonant sounds but different vowel sounds
Is there a name for words with the same consonant sounds, but different vowel sounds? For example:
talk, take
sit, site
taught, tote
bough, bow
My son has been mixing up these sets of words. I'd ...
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Can "on" be reduced?
According to Wiktionary page on "on" word , the pronunciation of "on" is either /ɔn/ or /ɑn/ depending if you have the cot-cought merger or not. usually, if a word has a reduced form, it's stated ...
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British [a] = American [ɑ] in certain words
There is a large group of words in which /a/ is pronounced [a] or [æː] in most American and some British dialects, but [ɑː] in most British dialects; this group includes past, can’t, fast, etc. This ...
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Longest English word without a vowel sound
I am not an English student, by discipline I am physicist, so am asking this question in innocence.
I searched Google for the longest word without a vowel sound and I got these results:
The ...
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The pronunciation of words which begin 'con' and 'com'
I know there is no strict rule on pronunciation of words in English but here my question is about the words which begin with 'con' and 'com', more than asking general rule.
When I look at the words ...
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/i/ sound before "ng" and "nk"
I'm a substitute teacher and recently was teaching a kindergarten class about long i sound. They were crossing out words without long i, circling words with long i. One of the words was ink. I told ...
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Pronunciation of words starting with "a"
I am not a native speaker, and I try to pronounce words as correct as possible. I am confused with this group of words:
apprehend, application (pronounced with æ)
approve, appraisal, appreciation (...
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Pronunciation of “master” and “plaster” in Northern England
A pattern I've noticed in Northern England is that people of my age (born in the '90s) pronounce words like “master” and “plaster” with a short A (/a/), whereas anyone of my parents' generation (born ...
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Why was it necessary to divide alphabets into vowels and consonants?
This may be an extremely simple question. I know pretty much what do we do when we see any vowel but I am curious why were these two classes created in the first place.
I beg pardon for another ...
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True realization of /i/ in American English: Is it really [ɪi]?
I have read in different places that the latter glide-like realization is the only one that exists in American English. Is this a regional thing? If yes, would you say it occurs in western US English?
...
user424161
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Pronunciation of "catch"
I was curious about the different pronunciations of the word catch; more specifically, the difference between /kætʃ/ and /kɛtʃ/.
The Oxford dictionary lists both pronunciations as correct; is this ...
user23794
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What was the pronunciation of the a in "trap" in early to mid Modern English in the UK?
I have often read that in Old and Middle English the "a" sound in words like "trap" was pronouned /a/. When it comes to modern English, Wikipedia suggests that this was raised to /æ/ in early Modern ...
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Pronunciation of "I" vowel name in fast speech
I'm not a native english speaker.
I was wondering what is the right way to pronunce the "I" (/aɪ/) vowel name in fast speech.
Perhaps i'm confused, but sometimes i hear /a/. Like in the ...
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schwa before /r/
Right now, Wikipedia gives the pronunciation of Sirius as /ˈsɪriəs/, but in the past I've seen editors insist on /ˈsɪəriəs/. I take this to mean that it should sound like seer, which I at least ...
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Why is the plural form of piano "pianos" and not "pianoes"?
The rule says that if a singular noun ends in consonant + "o" then the plural form will be consonant + "oes".
e.g. tomato => tomatoes.
Then, why this rule does not apply to piano?
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What do the letters ï and ô mean? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What is the distinction between “role” and “rôle” [with a circumflex]?
What is the significance of the “ô” character in “rôle” in this work?
What is the standard rule ...
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Possibility of a near-cure or peer-pure vowel merger in American English
I am a young speaker from Chicago with, I think, a relatively nonspecific General American accent. I’ve noticed something interesting with the vowels in the NEAR and CURE sets. These vowels can be ...
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Why do you write "receive" with "ei" but "retrieve" with "ie"? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Why is it true that “I before E, except after C”?
Both words are similar in pronunciation but different in spelling. Why is it that receive is written with ei but retrieve has ...
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Why is "go" spelled with the same vowel as "do" and "to" since it is pronounced differently?
These two-letter words ending in -o are pronounced with the vowel /oʊ/: bo, go
ho, jo, lo, no, so, and yo whereas do and to are pronounced with the vowel /uː/. Is there an explanation for the ...
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Are the words "Aural" and "Oral" homophones?
Are the words "Aural" and "Oral" usually pronounced the same? Does it vary by dialect? Are there strategies that people use to differentiate them when listening to spoken English?
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Where in the US are these vowels mispronounced? "got" -> "gat"
It is rather rare to hear a speaker pronounce vowels like this, so I would like to know where it comes from. I live in North America, so my only experience is with American English.
Most notably, I ...
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The proper way to say "Mocha" the coffee drink
I have noticed that most of the time when I go to Starbucks and order a mocha, the cashier doesn't seem to understand unless I repeat it.
I am trying to think why is that the case since it is a very ...
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Can vowels be combined in English without forming diphthongs?
Usually all combinations of vowels in English function as diphthongs. Are there any combinations of vowels in English that do not function as diphthongs? if there are no such examples - I would be ...
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/ɑ/ vs /ʌ/ pronunciation
I've realized I don't actually understand the difference between ɑ and ʌ completely.
Background: I'm a Hebrew speaker.
for me, the ʌ is pretty much the short Hebrew Kamatz sound (Bet with kamatz - ...
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Pronunciation of Bank, Tank, etc.: Bay-nk, Ray-nk or Baen-k or Raen-k?
What is the standard US pronunciation for words such as the following:
Bank
Rank
At least in my dialect of US English (Inland Northern), the following seem like close transcriptions:
Bank: bay-nk ...
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Voicing of sibilants before liquids, after voiced vowels?
I just ran across an interesting question from a friend about
the voicing of sibilants in English. She was asking why English
speakers pronounce the word muslim as muZlim (with a voiced
sibi...
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difference between American and British /ӕ/ sound
When I presented British /ӕ/ sound to three Korean English-familiar persons online - they are doing answering English-related questions activities [case 1; case 2], and asked what sound it’s like /ӕ/ ...
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Name for letter U in words like 'suede' and 'penguin'
What is the letter U called when it says the /w/ sound in words like suede and penguin? I've read that y and w are semivowels but the U in suede and penguin doesn't really conform to the definition of ...
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Is there any difference between a syllabic R /ɹ̩/ and r-colored vowel /ɚ/?
So I have seen that both of them can form a syllable on their own but I don't know the difference between them.
/ɹ̩/
it is a syllabic R and can form a syllable on its own as in [ˈdɔːɾɹ̩] ("...
user387044
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"An Universal Etymological English Dictionary". Why "An Universal"?
My question is not about the general usage of a/an, so, I believe, it is not a duplicate one. It is specifically about the title of the dictionary An Universal Etymological English Dictionary ...
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Is "parker" ([ˈpʰɑ̈˞kɚ]) a common pronunciation of "parkour" in American English?
I've recently had a small argument with a coworker about the pronunciation of parkour. Neither of us is a native speaker. She seems to believe "parker" (in narrow IPA, [ˈpʰɑ̈˞kɚ]) is the &...
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Why are the vowels in "harmony", "harmonic" and "harmonious" pronounced differently?
The "O" in all these words represents a different vowel:
Harmony → /ˈhɑː.mə.ni/
Harmonic → /hɑːˈmɒn.ɪk/
Harmonious → /hɑːˈməʊ.ni.əs/
(UK pronunciations from Cambridge Dictionary)
I know ...
user387044
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Why are "suffice" and "sufficient" pronounced so differently?
Today I heard somebody use a form of the verb "suffice" (which means "to be sufficient") pronouncing it like the verb "surface" without an r (and where that "a" makes more of an "i" sound). This ...
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Are vowels most often pronounced long or short?
English vowels can have two (or more, many more) different pronunciations:
A : /eɪ/, mate or /ɑː/, mat
E : /i:/, mete or /ɛ/, met
I : /aɪ/, mite or /I/, mitt
O : /oʊ/, mote or /ɒ/, moth
U : /juː/, ...
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