Vowels: Introduction

 

Part I: Vowels

Introduction to vowels

Vowel definition

Let’s first define what a vowel is. Vowels are often described as sounds in which the air stream moves up from the lungs and through the vocal tract very smoothly. In other words, there’s nothing blocking or constricting the vocal tract. By contrast, consonants are sounds that have obstruction somewhere in the production. This way of defining vowels and consonants, i.e., the absence or existence of obstruction in the vocal tract, is not precise since sounds like /l/, /r/, /w/, and /j/ are also produced without obstruction, but they are classified as consonants. 

A vowel is a necessary ingredient of a syllable 

Another way to define a vowel is to say that a vowel is a necessary ingredient of a syllable. A syllable is a constant feature in every spoken language since it is viewed as the phonological building block of words. It is like a beat in the rhythm of the word. Every single spoken word is made up of one or more syllables. For instance, ‘look’ is a one syllable word since there is just one beat made by ‘oo.’ And ‘looking’ is a two syllable word since there are two beats made by ‘oo’ and ‘i.’ In other words, a syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. Each language has its own rules about what kinds of syllables are allowed, and what kinds are not. For instance, Korean and English differ on the allowed number of consonant sounds and of vowel sounds in a syllable. However, the general structure of a syllable is considered to be constant across all languages as its core is a vowel sound. The vowel in a syllable is called the nucleus. The nucleus is the most sonorous part of a syllable. Consonant sounds can come before or after the nucleus. The sound that comes after the nucleus is called the coda, and the sound that comes before the nucleus is called the onset. A syllable can stand without a coda or an onset, but not without a nucleus, the vowel.

Exception to the above definition: Syllabic consonants are syllables without vowels

The idea that a syllable cannot stand without a vowel suggests that a vowel can form its own syllable. So we could define a vowel as the sound that can form its own syllable. This definition allows us to eliminate /w/ and /j/, since they cannot form a syllable, unlike their counterparts, /u/ and /ɪ/. This explains why /w/ and /j/ are called semi-vowels, and categorized under consonants. This definition, however, is not perfect since some consonants, for example, /l/, /m/, and /n/ can also stand as syllables in certain situations. When they do, they are called syllabic consonants. These words contain syllabic consonants: rhythm, button, and funnel. 

 

Languages can differ in their notions of vowels

Defining what exactly a vowel sound is now seems harder than it initially appeared to be due to exceptions to the rule. Some sounds are clearly vowel sounds and some are clearly consonant sounds. But when it comes to the boundary cases, as exemplified in English with semi-vowels and syllabic consonants, the idea of a vowel becomes blurry. If two languages have different conceptions of the well-formed syllable, like Korean vs English, their understanding of the vowel will differ. For instance, in English, /ju/ is a combination of a semivowel and a vowel, but in Korean, which has no semivowel type consonants, a sound similar to /ju/ is viewed as a combination of two vowel sounds. So it seems that ultimately whether a sound is a consonant or a vowel can be determined within its own language system. 

American elementary school classification 

To learn the pronunciation of vowel sounds, we want to know the number of vowel sounds. American elementary school teachers teach their students that each vowel letter has long and short sounds. Since there are 5 vowel letters (A, E, I, O and U), there will be 10 total vowel sounds, like short A and long A, short E and long E, and so on. However, “long” and “short” do not mean that the sounds are identical except for length. Depending on the surrounding sounds, ‘short’ vowels can be as long as ‘long’ vowels. 

 

Long vowel sounds and short sounds

In fact, when the teachers say long and short, they mean something entirely different. According to them, when a vowel letter says its name, then that vowel is making a ‘long’ sound. So, in the case of the letter ‘A’, words like ‘ape’ and 'cake’ have the long ‘A’ sound. By contrast, the short ‘A’ sound is /æ/, as in ‘apple’ and ‘cat.’ In the case of ‘E’, the short E sound is /ɛ/ as in ‘egg’ and ‘elephant,’ and the long E sound is /i/ as in ‘eat’ and ‘eagle.’ In the case of ‘I’, the short I sound is /ɪ/ as in ‘igloo’, and the long I sound is /aɪ/ as in ‘ice.’ In the case of ‘O’, the short sound is /ɑ/ as in ‘octopus’, and the long sound is /oʊ/ as in ‘oatmeal.’ And in the case of U, the short sound is /ʌ/ as in ‘umbrella’, and the long sound is /ju/ as in ‘unicorn.’ 

 

Problems with American elementary school classification of vowels

The American elementary school classification of the vowel sounds is inadequate for a few reasons. First, the list does not cover all vowel sounds that can be found in standard American English. There are far more vowel sounds than the 10 long and short vowel sounds. These are some vowel phoneme sounds that are missing in the list: /u, ʊ, ɔ, ɔɪ, aʊ/. Secondly, the list includes a vowel sound /ju/ that is not a pure vowel phoneme. The so-called “long U” sound is a composite of /j/ and /u/. Third, in English, each vowel letter can be pronounced in more than the two different ways mentioned above. For example, the letter ‘A’ can be pronounced as /æ/ as in ‘hat’, /eɪ/ as in ‘hate’, and /ɑ/ as in ‘car’. Since there is no one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds in English, we cannot use vowel letters to indicate vowel sounds. 

How many vowels are there in English?

English is not a phonetic language 

The fact that there is no one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds in English implies that English is not a phonetic language. In a phonetic language, all the letters have fixed pronunciations, and even if they change, they do so according to some phonologically justifiable rules. Korean, for instance, is a phonetic language, as its writing system was invented and distributed by the government in 1446 to teach its people to speak with the correct sounds. Prior to the invention of the Korean alphabet, Koreans relied on Chinese characters. By contrast, the English writing system developed in a haphazard way. Due to its history of foreign invasions and long-lasting occupations on the land of Britain, English is made of a mix of Latin, German and French, and many more. Because of this, we cannot sound out most English words. Letters in words are silent sometimes for no reason and some sounds appear when there are no corresponding letters in the word. For example, ‘colonel’ is pronounced /kur.nuhl/, with /r/, even though there is no R in the spelling of the word.