Vowels and consonants

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Traditionally, The English language has 5 vowels: A, E, I, O & U. But we all know that isn't strictly true, for Y can be a vowel too.

Indeed, one could argue that it's always a vowel, albeit of the diphthong kind: ee-er becoming ier, becoming yer.

So, if Y is a vowel, then W is too. Not because it's double-U, which is really isn't, but because if we consider the French "oui", that is pronounced "we", without any consideration of a consonant existing.

In Welsh a W is always a vowel, but there's no ambiguity as it's a pure "oo" sound.


So, linguistics people, am I barking up the wrong tree, or is there something in it?

[vinteuil]

.

... wiki may help :

"There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one phonetic and the other phonological.

In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English "ah" /ɑː/ or "oh" /oʊ/, produced with an open vocal tract; it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth), frictionless and continuant.There is no significant build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as the English "sh" [ʃ], which have a constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract.
In the phonological definition, a vowel is defined as syllabic, the sound that forms the peak of a syllable A phonetically equivalent but non-syllabic sound is a semivowel. In oral languages, phonetic vowels normally form the peak (nucleus) of many or all syllables, whereas consonants form the onset and (in languages that have them) coda. Some languages allow other sounds to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the syllabic (i.e., vocalic) l in the English word table [ˈtʰeɪ.bl̩] (when not considered to have a weak vowel sound: [ˈtʰeɪ.bəl]) or the syllabic r in the Serbo-Croatian word vrt [ʋr̩̂t] "garden".
The phonetic definition of "vowel" (i.e. a sound produced with no constriction in the vocal tract) does not always match the phonological definition (i.e. a sound that forms the peak of a syllable). The approximants [j] and [w] illustrate this: both are without much of a constriction in the vocal tract (so phonetically they seem to be vowel-like), but they occur at the onset of syllables (e.g. in "yet" and "wet") which suggests that phonologically they are consonants. A similar debate arises over whether a word like bird in a rhotic dialect has an r-colored vowel /ɝ/ or a syllabic consonant /ɹ̩/. The American linguist Kenneth Pike (1943) suggested the terms "vocoid" for a phonetic vowel and "vowel" for a phonological vowel, so using this terminology, [j] and [w] are classified as vocoids but not vowels. However, Maddieson and Emmory (1985) demonstrated from a range of languages that semivowels are produced with a narrower constriction of the vocal tract than vowels, and so may be considered consonants on that basis. Nonetheless, the phonetic and phonemic definitions would still conflict for the syllabic /l/ in table, or the syllabic nasals in button and rhythm."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel

Meself, I wd consider Y and W to be approximant semi-vowels -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximant_consonant

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semivowel

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"An yellow balloon"?
"An yacht"?
"An Yorkshire Pudding"?
"Is that an yes or a No?"?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

.

... wiki may help :

"There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one phonetic and the other ...

... rhythm."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel

Meself, I wd consider Y and W to be approximant semi-vowels -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximant_consonant

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semivowel

.

It does indeed help. Many thanks.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

"An yellow balloon"?
"An yacht"?
"An Yorkshire Pudding"?
"Is that an yes or a No?"?

Fair enough, but some people say "an historic ..."

[vinteuil]

Fair enough, but some people say "an historic ..."

... where the h is barely sounded, and the first syllable is unstressed, yes. So : a history, but an historical approach.

And those who say an hotel are not pronouncing the h in hotel at all....


.

[cloughie]

And the number of vowel sounds increases when it comes to singing them!

...add to that the southern and northern pronounciations of 'a'.

[subcontrabass]

Fair enough, but some people say "an historic ..."

Which also makes it clear that what was said was not "ahistoric".

[Tony Halstead]

And the number of vowel sounds increases when it comes to singing them!

...add to that the southern and northern pronounciations of 'a'.

as well as the southern and northern pronunciations of 'u'!

[greenilex]

Is there a vowel continuum?

[french frank]

Is there a vowel continuum?

I don't know that it's described like that, but something like that seems to exist. Like the colours of the spectrum?

[Serial_Apologist]

as well as the southern and northern pronunciations of 'u'!

Bath buns.

Except that in Bath (Spa) the "a" would undergo yet another modification additional to the north-south division, if you're talking in any one of the West Country accents or those of Wales - a sort of prolongation of the "flat A".

[Pabmusic]

"An yellow balloon"?
"An yacht"?
"An Yorkshire Pudding"?
"Is that an yes or a No?"?

I'd understood that 'y' has two forms, with these examples being consonantal. 'Yesterday' has one at the start but a vowel form at the end. 'I' and 'u' also had vowel and consonantal forms, but the latter became separate letters - J and two consonantal forms of 'u' - V and W.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'd understood that 'y' has two forms, with these examples being consonantal. .

Quite so - but Alpie's posited argument in the OP that "it's always a vowel" doesn't hold.

[greenilex]

To go back to the continuum question, I seem to be able to make an approximation by stretching my mouth variously as I speak the conventional five...no breaks in between, but a definite y and a w to conclude.