Vowel movements
Jun. 8th, 2010 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm interested to learn what people think a vowel is. For reasons that will be explained further down the post, once you've done the poll!
[Poll #1575745]
We were at a pub quiz the other day where a question was: Name a six-letter word in English that starts and finishes with the same letter, a vowel; and has no other vowels inbetween. ie. the pattern is 'v1234v' where both vs are the same vowel, and 1,2,3,4 are consonants which may be the same or different. Then name another six-letter word that also fits this pattern.
We got one quite quickly, but on a second being suggested, there was a difference of opinion about whether it counted or not: it had a 'y' in the middle, pronounced as a long 'i' sound. One group argued that only a, e, i o and u are vowels, so y is definitely a consonant. Another argued that although y is sometimes a consonant, when it's pronounced like i then it's a vowel. A third opinion was that it depended if it was written or spoken. What would you have said?
And, for a bonus, can you get the two words? The one we got quickly is the name of a common medical complaint. The one with a 'y' in the middle (which, it turned out, didn't count, as the quizmaster was using the aeiou interpretation) is the name of a category of biological substance. The official second answer which we didn't get, is a highly obscure topographical term (and is a plural, if that helps).
Also I'm interested to know, people who are knowledgable about other languages, whether they handle these things more sensibly?
[Poll #1575745]
We were at a pub quiz the other day where a question was: Name a six-letter word in English that starts and finishes with the same letter, a vowel; and has no other vowels inbetween. ie. the pattern is 'v1234v' where both vs are the same vowel, and 1,2,3,4 are consonants which may be the same or different. Then name another six-letter word that also fits this pattern.
We got one quite quickly, but on a second being suggested, there was a difference of opinion about whether it counted or not: it had a 'y' in the middle, pronounced as a long 'i' sound. One group argued that only a, e, i o and u are vowels, so y is definitely a consonant. Another argued that although y is sometimes a consonant, when it's pronounced like i then it's a vowel. A third opinion was that it depended if it was written or spoken. What would you have said?
And, for a bonus, can you get the two words? The one we got quickly is the name of a common medical complaint. The one with a 'y' in the middle (which, it turned out, didn't count, as the quizmaster was using the aeiou interpretation) is the name of a category of biological substance. The official second answer which we didn't get, is a highly obscure topographical term (and is a plural, if that helps).
Also I'm interested to know, people who are knowledgable about other languages, whether they handle these things more sensibly?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:07 am (UTC)I don't think that's crazy. The clue is in the word "sound".
Of course, perhaps it's just my mathematician's bias in terms of wanting technical terms to have clear definitions and being happy to use long, vague descriptions for long, vague ideas!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:43 am (UTC)I would have expected most people to say that the vowels are "a, e, i, o and u", particularly if they didn't qualify it. In the quiz scenario, it would be worth asking the quizmeister, but in the absence of clarification, I would assume that y wouldn't count, even though I would count it myself.
The reason for this is that most people only really associate the word "vowel" with that collection of five letters, and probably the sounds they represent (in fact, as I'm sure you know, of the AY, EE, AI, OE and YU sounds, only the first two are genuine vowels, and the others are dipthongs, but most people not only don't know that, they don't care, and they wouldn't thank you for pointing it out in conversation)!
Stephen Fry drew attention to the issue in QI, when he said that the most common vowel in the English language is "schwa" (ə) more commonly recognised as the dull vowel sound in "the" or in the second syllable of "station".
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:08 am (UTC)It seems to me that it's more sensible to count 'y' as a vowel than to count it as a consonant, though basically it can act as either in different circumstances.
Whoever said it depends whether it's spoken or written was clearly insane :)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:30 am (UTC)I suspect that may be at the root of many respondents' answers.
Sadly I've come gradually to the realization that almost every 'rule' of the English language that I learnt at primary school was wrong.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:46 am (UTC)This.
I always think of vowels of letters that can stand on its own, not as sounds in usage but that is most likely due to my German roots as some English vowels on their own are diphtongs so not a single sound (u is pronounced "you", a is "ay" etc. whereas in German it's all one sound, like a musical note).
However, the technical linguistic definition seems to be usage based, so y and w would fall under vowels.
I wouldn't even have thought of that if it hadn't been for this post. o_O
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:21 am (UTC)eg
eg <a href="http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861732372_1861732379/nextpage.html"http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861732372_1861732379/nextpage.html</a>
I am aware in Japanese, for instance, that some letters have changed sound, and have lost their distinct prounciations - so you have wo --> o (but is still used written in a distinct semantic context), and ye has been abolished (having become e), except as an equivalent of "ye olde pub", so there is (y)ebisu beer, where the y is silent, but gives the impression of something old.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:49 am (UTC)Just as a point of interest, I discovered last week that "ch" is a valid word in Scrabble (English, obviously), and is a dialect term meaning "I". Not sure if it's pronounced with a vowel sound, or what the originating dialect is, but it's true!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:27 am (UTC)English has considerably more phonetic vowels (I forget the exact number, but it's in double figures, plus a handful of dipthongs, which are two vowels welded together in such a way that most native speakers don't even realise that they are not a single sound).
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:58 am (UTC)I have gone for "something else" rather than "it depends" because I don't know what the sometimes actually depends on.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 11:58 am (UTC)First word: asthma?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 12:14 pm (UTC)I'm trying to think now of a word that starts with y as a vowel, and so would need 'an'. But I can't. Hmm.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 12:16 pm (UTC)I can't see that any definition other than a stricutly functional one can stand up. If it behaves like a vowel, it is a vowel.
Asthma, yes. But there is another which word which fits the definition but seems not to have been included - aphtha (mouth ulcer).
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 12:11 pm (UTC)I don't think I'd personally include W, because, although it doesn't involve any teeth or tongue sounds, it's not a simple sound, it's always (in English) composed of 'oo' plus another vowel - oo-ah, oo-ih, oo-oh, etc. I think maybe (and this seems to be basically the same point karohemd made) vowels are supposed to be the pure open mouth sounds - even though often in English we pronounce a diphthongy sound - a becomes 'ayee', o becomes 'owa', i becomes 'ayee', u becomes 'yooou', in theory, vowel sounds are pure. In other languages (eg Spanish, Korean (I'm told)), they're still pure simple sounds.
I'm not sure us English speakers can really talk about vowels at all, given that we generally only actually pronounce one vowel per word (the vowel with the stress), the rest becoming slurred 'uh' sounds. (In Spanish it's the opposite - crystal-clear vowels, but they barely pronounce their consonants at all.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 03:59 pm (UTC)Not to mention 'vowels' like the e at the end of rattle, which aren't actually pronounced at all but are just there to prevent the terminal consonant looking silly.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 03:45 pm (UTC)Also in Korean the vowels look very different to consonants: ㅣㅏㅡㅑㅖ compared to ㅈㄷㅋㅇㅆ for example. But then Korean is a far more sensible language than English.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 03:54 pm (UTC)I think I'm right in saying that some Semitic languages, such as Hebrew, don't have written vowels at all.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 06:21 pm (UTC)It seems to me to be a difference in technical versus layfolk language. In ordinary English, as used for talking about individual letters, it's a, e, i, o and u, and when talking about letters-as-parts-of-words, it's a, e, i, o and u, and sometimes y and w.
In technical (linguistic) language, although it also uses the above definitions for written language, there's an extra definition. I'm not enough of a technical linguist to be precise about it, but it's something like 'a single standalone phoneme', which sort-of corresponds to the sounds we represent with the vowel-letters.
The way I understand the 'standaloneness' of the phoneme is to think that for all the consonants (in the alphabet; I'm not getting into what a consonant is, or all the different non-vowel phonemes in English), if you try and pronounce them as individual sounds, you have to add a vowel-sound, usually schwah. Buh, tuh, kuh, etc. We can't say b, t, k, and the rest, without the vowel. A-as-in-cat, otoh, we can say on its own, therefore it's a vowel (sound), represented by a vowel (letter).
no subject
Date: 2010-06-10 09:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 06:51 pm (UTC)I'm with you on 'y', but in the context of a quiz the question is not what's 'right' but what the quiz-setter had in mind, so aeiou in this case I would've bet (I say in full enjoyment of hindsight).
Reading wikip (prompted by 'liquid' above which I hadn't head of) I see there's a contention that R can carry the main sound of a word in certain dialects (they say General American, I would add Ulster and Scots). So, purpler, in General American is devoid of our 'u' sound that it's spelt with and is pronounced prplr. I've always loved the way (some) Americans say 'purple' and I think this informs that - it sounds odd because that stressed R is doing such different work than it does in my English.
I also liked the alleged vowelless prst_skrz_krk
no subject
Date: 2010-06-10 09:08 am (UTC)There's a good page here about such r-related antics, but it needs me to follow loads of other links defining terms before I will properly understand all of it.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 08:13 am (UTC)