vowels
Alphabet's open sounds
Vowels are the speech sounds produced with an open vocal tract, represented in English by the letters A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y.
They form the core of syllables and contrast with consonants, which involve some obstruction of airflow.
In casual use, vowels often refers just to these letters rather than the sounds themselves: The word "rhythm" has no vowels except Y.
Learning to identify vowels is among the first tasks in reading instruction.
Minimal distinctive sound unit
- diphthongComplex vowel gliding between positions
- monophthongSteady, ungliding vowel sound
- schwaNeutral unstressed vowel
- syllableUnit of pronunciation
nucleus · glide · semivowel · allophone · grapheme · phonetics · phonology · articulation
Manner of speaking words
- enunciationClarity of spoken words
- elocutionFormal speaking skill
- accentRegional speech pattern
- intonationPitch variation in speech
stress · vocalization · utterance · inflection · prosody · cadence · timbre · resonance
Highest academic mark
- EFifth alphabetic character
- IFirst-person subject pronoun
- OFifteenth alphabet character
- UTwenty-first alphabetical character
Y · uppercase · lowercase · alphabet · spelling · orthography · written · script
phoneme
Minimal distinctive sound unit
- diphthongComplex vowel gliding between positions
- monophthongSteady, ungliding vowel sound
- schwaNeutral unstressed vowel
syllable · nucleus · glide · semivowel · allophone · grapheme · phonetics · phonology · articulation · vocalic
pronunciation
Manner of speaking words
- enunciationClarity of spoken words
- elocutionFormal speaking skill
- accentRegional speech pattern
intonation · stress · vocalization · utterance · inflection · prosody · cadence · timbre · resonance · clarity
A
Highest academic mark
U · Y · uppercase · lowercase · alphabet · spelling · orthography · written · script · character
assonance
Vowel sound repetition
- euphonyPleasant arrangement of sounds
- rhymeMatching terminal sounds
- alliterationMatching initial consonants
sonority · musicality · flow · cadence · lilt · resonance · poetic · lyrical · melodic · pleasing
vocalize
Produce sounds aloud
- beltStrap securing trousers
- sustainKeep something going continuously
- melismaMulti-note syllable singing
vibrato · pitch · tone · register · falsetto · projection · resonance · warm-up · scales · solfege
- alphabetABC, consonants, uppercase, lowercase, capital letters
- lettersa, d, e, h, q
- vocabularyword, words, new words, term, terms
- alphabetsLatin, Latin alphabet, Greek alphabet, Roman alphabet, Hebrew script
- English languagelinguistics, semantics, phonetics, orthography, vocabulary
- Latin alphabeta, d, e, h, q
vowelsconsonants
Letters that aren't vowels
stops · fricatives · plosives · nasals · sibilants
- long vowelsVowels pronounced as names
- short vowelBrief vocalic phoneme
- vowel soundUnobstructed speech tone
- front vowelSound made tongue-forward
- Great Vowel ShiftHistorical English pronunciation change
- rounded vowelsVowels with lip protrusion