Vowel letters

A vowel letter is a letter that represents a vowel. A vowel is a speech sound in spoken language which is pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis.

For historical reasons there is a large mismatch between the number of vowels in English - which has up to twenty vowels (depending on the accent) - and the vowel letters, which are limited to A E I O U, and in some cases, Y (see below).

All vowel letters have 4 basic sounds: short sound, long sound, long rhotic monophthong and rhotic diphthong. They are shown here in five columns, because the so-called “short” sound (as in trap) is shown separately before /r/ (as in carry).

Two sounds of O (/ɔː/ and /oə/) have merged in most part of the English speaking world, so O has only 3 basic sounds.

Note that the words “long” and “short” are conventional names. For example /ɑː/ is a long sound, but it is called “short o”.

A
See main article Decoding the letter A.

The vowel letter a has six common pronunciations, as in the following examples:
 * /æ/: and - bad - carry - happy - man - trap


 * /æ/, /ɑː/: ask - glass - bath


 * /ɑːr/: car - marble - start


 * /eɪ/: day - face - same - rain - stay


 * /eə/: aware - care - scare - square


 * /ɔ/: ball - call - law - saw - talk - walk


 * /ə/: about - America - England


 * Spelling anomalies
 * /ɒ/: want - watch
 * /ɒ, ʌ/: what - wasn’t
 * /e/: any - many - said - says

E
See main article Decoding the letter E.

The vowel letter e has six common pronunciations, as in the following examples:
 * //: cherry - get - pen - well


 * /ɜː/: service - term - verb


 * /iː/ me - she - theme


 * /ɪə/: here - material - period


 * /ɪ/: return - decide - debate


 * /ə/: happen - model - problem - teacher


 * End of word
 * At the end of the word the letter e is normally silent. See silent e.
 * Examples:
 * same - theme - time - bone - cute - type


 * The letter e is pronounced at the end of one-syllable words in which no other vowel is present:
 * he - we - she


 * Spelling anomalies
 * catastrophe - Chile - karate - recipe

E is also part of some digraphs.


 * "ea" and "ee" as /iː/: see - speak - weak - week - three


 * "ei" or "ey" as /eɪ/: eight - weight - they


 * "eu" or "ew" as /juː/: dew - Europe - few - new

I
See main article Decoding the letter I.

The vowel letter i has five common pronunciations, as in the following examples:
 * /ɪ/: think - fit - win
 * /aɪ/: time - night - wine
 * /aɪə/: desire - fire - hire
 * /ɜː/: bird - first - girl
 * /ə/: April - civil - cousin

O
See main article Decoding the letter O.

The vowel letter o has four common pronunciations, as in the following examples:
 * /ɒ/: long - off - on - stop


 * /ɔː/: for - long - more - off - short - thought


 * /əʊ/: go - home - open - phone


 * /ʌ/: come - love - Monday - money


 * Spelling anomalies
 * /uː/: do - lose - move - to - two - who
 * /ʊ/: woman
 * /ɪ/: women

U
See main article Decoding the letter U.

The vowel letter u has four common pronunciations, as in the following examples:
 * /juː/: unit - use - tune - university.


 * /uː/: brutal - June - rule - truth.


 * /ʌ/: fun - but - butter - summer.


 * /ɜː/: turn - return - burn - Thursday.


 * Spelling anomalies
 * busy - minute - sure

Y
See main article Decoding the letter Y.

The letter y corresponds to both a vowel and a consonant.

As a vowel it has two common pronunciations in English, as in the following examples:


 * /aɪ/: try - fly - why - my


 * /iː/ or /ɪ/: city - easy - tiny - ugly

As a consonant:


 * /j/: yes - you - year

Semivowel
To further complicate the matter, English also has semivowels - letters such as "L" and "W" which, like our "Y" above, can have the properties of both vowels and consonants.

Curiosities
There obviously aren't many words in English that contain all the vowel letters, but abstemious and facetious are two of the relatively common ones - and are both spelt in a-e-i-o-u order, too.