# Why is 'y' a vowel? [also 'w']



## Karen123456

I have been told that 'y' is a vowel. I am confused because, to me, it is a consonant.  Is my friend correct?

Thanks.


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## Cagey

*Y* is both a vowel an a consonant. 

In _by_ and _silly_, _*y*_ is a vowel
In _yes_, _yellow _and _yoke_, _*y*_ is a consonant.


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## Tazzler

Y can represent both a vowel sound and a consonant sound. It depends on the word, as in the examples Cagey gave you.


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## natkretep

We just need to define 'vowel' and 'consonant' clearly, and to establish whether we are talking about actual sounds or letters.

The _vowel letters_ in English are <a>, <e>, <i>, <o> and <u>. According to this criterion, <y> is not a vowel.

But we also talk of _vowel sounds_, represented by letters. Cagey has given examples. The <y> in _gym_ represents a vowel sound.


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## Karen123456

Thanks to all of you for your explanations.


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## sdgraham

Cagey said:


> *Y* is both a vowel an a consonant.
> 
> In _by_ and _silly_, _*y*_ is a vowel
> In _yes_, _yellow _and _yoke_, _*y*_ is a consonant.



It's  a vowel sound in "Cagey" as well .

And, remembering the rule that English words must contain a vowel, consider the lynx or the name "Lynn."


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## catlady60

My teacher taught me that the letter "y" is really a _semivowel._ 

This Wikipedia article explains it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semivowel


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## entangledbank

It makes no sense to classify English letters as vowels or consonants. Vowels and consonants are sounds, and in English have a complex relationship to the letters used to represent them. I can't think of _a single language_ where we can uncomplicatedly talk about the letters of the script as if they were the vowels and consonants of the language - even highly phonetically-written languages like Finnish or Malay have no one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters.

The English consonant [j] is the first consonant of the words _young, union, Europe_. On the other hand the English letter Y is a symbol for a consonant in _young_, a symbol for a vowel in _fly_ and for a different vowel in _lynx_, and part of the symbol AY for the vowel in _pay_.


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## mplsray

Karen123456 said:


> I have been told that 'y' is a vowel. I am confused because, to me, it is a consonant.  Is my friend correct?
> 
> Thanks.



While I can see *entangledbank*'s point, English letters, and indeed letters in all languages that use letters, have traditionally been classified as vowels or consonants, and taught as such. In English, the letters-as-vowels are taught as "a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y."

I'm sure there are many reasons for this, but one important one, it seems to me, is as an aid to alphabetization. When alphabetizing a list, it helps to pay particular attention to the vowels. I suspect this is the reason that we now say "a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y" when the phrase appears to have originally been "a, e, i, o, u and sometimes w and y." The oldest examples I can find of the latter in Google Books date to 1834 and 1835. 

The oldest example I can find via Google Books of "a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y" is from 1898 and explicitly involves sorting (it's in a discussion of a "vowel index"). The oldest example not explicitly involving sorting are from 1931 and 1939. The way I learned about vowel letters, when growing up in the 1950's, was with "a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y," and I have to think that this is based upon (1) the helpfulness of knowing the vowels in alphabetical order for purposes of sorting and (2) the little help that _w_ would add to the list, since few English words use _w_ as a simple vowel (offhand, I can think only of _cwm_).


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## Cagey

Also, we are taught that all [English] words require a vowel to be pronounced. (Possibly this is not completely accurate, but it is what we are taught.)  While it is true that this rule could be more accurately explained in terms of sound, we are generally taught rules for _written_ language, for the graphic representation.  It is handy to have a fixed set of symbols that we remember as filling this function.  

Thus, at an early stage of our learning we can identify the "vowels" in _by_ and _gym_, though we may be a bit puzzled by the '_y_' in _yes_.


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## pops91710

natkretep said:


> We just need to define 'vowel' and 'consonant' clearly, and to establish whether we are talking about actual sounds or letters.
> 
> The _vowel letters_ in English are <a>, <e>, <i>, <o> and <u>. According to this criterion, <y> is not a vowel.
> 
> But we also talk of _vowel sounds_, represented by letters. Cagey has given examples. The <y> in _gym_ represents a vowel sound.


 
This is right on. 
Technically a vowel is a letter of the alphabet that represents a speech sound made with the vocal tract open. (vowel sound)

When you say "a, e, i, o, u" (and sometimes y) you are making sounds with the vocal tract open. 

"Y" is included because of words like gym, hymn, and synonymous. But, words like Yes, beyond, yellow require the mouth and tongue to shape the sounds.

Consonants, on the other hand, use teeth, tongue placement, and lips for forming sounds in speech.

By the way..I was taught "sometimes w and y".


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## perpend

I found this on answers . com, I hope it's okay to include it here, though it's about *w*, and not *y*.
I think it is on the topic of the "y" and "w" hybrids.

_Many words have W for a vowel, such as awe, bow, cow, dew, ewe, few gew-gaw, hew, jaw, known, lawn, maw, now, owe, pew, raw, sew, tow, vow, wow and yawn.

However, in these cases, the W is only technically a vowel, because it contributes a vowel sound, as would the letter U, from which it originates. Some words, especially Welsh, use the W as the primary vowel, much as Y is used in English. One example is the word "cwm" (valley)._


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## g--n

This thread is years old, but it is, in fact really the only relevant place I found that discussed this. On Google/_the internet_!

Regarding 'w':



pops91710 said:


> I was taught "sometimes w and y".



As was I. And until today, I more or less thought this was a strange and anachronistic "English class" saying (like "i before e except after c") which gets repeated over and over, but isn't actually correct, merely just helpful when teaching grammar school English.

I read this sentence to be incorrect:



perpend said:


> Many words have W for a vowel, such as awe, bow, cow, dew, ewe, few gew-gaw, hew, jaw, known, lawn, maw, now, owe, pew, raw, sew, tow, vow, wow and yawn.



That is to say, I do not read the 'w' in any of those words to be a vowel. Variously, it is a consonant, a consonant modifier, or a vowel modifier.

Were that enough for a letter to 'be counted' as a/the vowel, by that logic, one well should also include letters like the 'z' in czar (with the careful, aspirated pronunciation tsɑɹ), particularly given etymological ambiguity: http: historum.com ancient-history/12818-caesar-pronunciation.html.


But I was wrong to make that assumption, I think. Today, I stumbled upon the fact that 'cwm' is, in fact, included as a "first class" English word in most authoritative dictionaries, "from" Welsh, not just "in" Welsh. It is also fully a "new word" to me, and I definitely never expected to learn a new three letter word!


Some observations and thoughts:


— It would seem that "sometimes w and y" *is* correct. But as I said above, not in words like 'awe' and 'bow', but when in a word like 'cwm'.

— Pure speculation, but it occurs to me that the "sometimes w and y" saying might originate from grammar school English in Southern England/Greater  London/Wales, where one might actually come across the *need* to know the word 'cwm'.

A curious deviation which I think helps bolster the hypothesis above:

*New Oxford American Dictionary 3rd ed, 2012:*

a cirque, esp. one in the mountains of Wales.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: Welsh; related to combe.

*Oxford Dictionary of English 3rd ed, 2012 ("the British one"):*

a cirque, especially one in the mountains of Wales. [ in place names ] : _there is a dusting of snow in Cwm Glas Mawr._
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: Welsh; related to combe.

-- Geoff Nixon


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## g--n

And here's a riddle for you: I had assumed the dictionary example above was something perhaps from a poem. There does appear to be one, exactly one other page that turns up if you search that quote, and it says:

_There is a dusting of snow in Cwm Glas Mawr and above, while clouds have just rolled back from the summit ridge

_But that would be from https: framenet2.icsi.berkeley.edu/fnReports/fndata.old2/xml/lu/lu3703.xml


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## perpend

There's a street in Chicago "Bryn Mawr". I hope you feel that both of those are vowels, g--n. 

I grew up with the phrase "except sometimes *y *and *w*", as pops (#11) did too, though his native language is Spanish Mexican. Mine is American English. No matter, though, it just depends on where you go/went to school (not to mention age, but that's a no-no).

For me, "w", is a consonant in "vowel", but in "owe" for example, it is a vowel. You might as well write "oh", but we don't.


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## PaulQ

_ Cwm Glas Mawr_ is Welsh - a language unrelated to English. = Valley big green (noun + post-positional adjective + post-positional adjective) pron /kum glɑrs maʊər/ 

"_Bryn Mawr_" is also Welsh = "Hill Big" (noun + post-positional adjective) pron./brɪnˈmaʊər/ 

'W' and 'Y' are pure vowels in Welsh. W is equivalent to the /u/ sound in food.


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## perpend

Does that mean that you do or "down't"  believe that "w" and "y" are once in a while vowels in British English or American English, Paul?


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## ewie

Let's not forget _pwn_.  Let's all do our best to forget _pwn_.


> 'Pwn' has no generally accepted pronunciation: renditions include /oʊn/, /poʊn/, /pəʔˈoʊn/, /pɔːn/, /piˈoʊn/ and /pwəʔˈn̩/.
> ...
> Originally, 'pwn' and its variants were pronounced /ˈoʊn/) in the same way as the derived verb 'own'; the tail of the 'p' being "silent".
> ...
> Where speakers vocalize the "p", pronounciations include "pone", "pwen", "pawn", "pun" and "pwone".
> _Source_


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## PaulQ

g--n said:


> I do not read the 'w' in any of those words to be a vowel. Variously, it is a consonant, a consonant modifier, or a vowel modifier.


I would say that is correct.





> But I was wrong to make that assumption, I think. Today, I stumbled upon the fact that 'cwm' is, in fact, included as a "first class" English word in most authoritative dictionaries, "from" Welsh, not just "in" Welsh. It is also fully a "new word" to me, and I definitely never expected to learn a new three letter word!


As the English word 'coombe' /cum/ has been in existence for over 1,300 years, and I have no reference for Welsh, it is hard to say which came first.

Early English may have stolen a Welsh word or vice versa. As you will see, the English word is now spelled '*coombe*', as in the name of such towns as Ilfacoombe and Babbacoombe.





> — It would seem that "sometimes w and y" *is* correct. But as I said above, not in words like 'awe' and 'bow', but when in a word like 'cwm'.


No. That is taking it too far.





> Pure speculation, but it occurs to me that the "sometimes w and y" saying might originate from grammar school English in Southern England/Greater  London/Wales, where one might actually come across the *need* to know the word 'cwm'.


As a word written as part of English text, 'cwm' did not appear until the middle of the 19th century. You should bear in mind that this was a time when there was a upsurge in interest in the culture of Wales and the Welsh language.



> A curious deviation which I think helps bolster the hypothesis above:
> 
> *New Oxford American Dictionary 3rd ed, 2012:*
> 
> a cirque, esp. one in the mountains of Wales.
> ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: Welsh; related to combe.


I think that is the wrong way round. The word 'coombe' meaning 'valley' is recorded c. 770: "770    in  Birch _Cartul. Sax._ I. 290 (  No. 204 )   				Of þære brigge in *cumb*; of þam *cumbe *in ale beardes ac."

As standardised spelling did not reach Britain until much later, you can see how the Welsh, with their 'oo' sounding vowel 'w' would spell coombe as cwm. Or perhaps some early Saxon learned the Welsh word and rendered it phonetically as 'cumb.'





perpend said:


> Does that mean that you do or "down't"  believe that "w" and "y" are once in a while vowels in British English or American English, Paul?


 No. As I see it, if a letter is a vowel, you can make a three letter 'word' (consonant + vowel + consonant) out of it that would be obvious as to how it was pronounced. 'Cwm' fails this test.

Perhaps one view of it might be partially paralleled in, for example, the French "biftek" which they borrowed from the English "beefsteak." Either English borrowed cwm and rendered it coombe, or the Welsh borrowed coombe and rendered it 'cwm'.


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## perpend

Does "cym" have one or two syllables in Welsh English?


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## Andygc

PaulQ said:


> Early English may have stolen a Welsh word or vice versa. As you will see, the English word is now spelled '*coombe*', as in the name of such towns as Ilfacoombe and Babbacoombe


Perhaps that'll be "combe" as in Ilfracombe, Babbacombe, Combe Martin, Woolacombe, Westcombe, Hollacombe, Watcombe, Oddicombe, Maidencombe ...... 

PS. Pronounced pretty well the same as 'cwm', with alternative spellings 'coomb' and 'comb', but not 'coombe'.


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## PaulQ

1. the word is cwm, not cym
2. there is no Welsh English: there is Welsh and there is English, just as there is Spanish and Mandarin. (Welsh and English are that far apart.)

Taking the Welsh town named 'Cwmbran' as an example, in English we say /kʊmˈbræn/, but the Welsh spell it Cwmbrân /kʊmˈbrɑːn/, and in both cases cwm is one syllable.





Andygc said:


> Perhaps that'll be "combe" as in Ilfracombe,  Babbacombe, Combe Martin, Woolacombe, Westcombe, Hollacombe, Watcombe,  Oddicombe, Maidencombe ......


Point taken.


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## g--n

perpend said:


> There's a street in Chicago "Bryn Mawr". I hope you feel that both of those are vowels, g--n.




I'm actually not sure. I'm not very familiar with the pronunciation of Chicagoan Welsh? 
But, if fully "Amurrcanized" to something like "brinn [chairman]mao-er", no, I would say the 'w' were a consonant, not a vowel.




perpend said:


> as pops (#11) did too, though his native language is Spanish Mexican.




Really? Again, I was taught that as well, but I would have assumed a wholly different set of vowels would be taught in Latin America, that it would vary depending on the extent to which one subscribed to the idea of a Castilian "received pronunciation" and include é, í, and vary depending on yeísmo vs. lleísmo, etc.




perpend said:


> No matter, though, it just depends on where you go/went to school (not to mention age, but that's a no-no).




True, though I assume you mean its a no-no to ask, not volunteer one's own. If it helps to clarify my intent here, I am from California, am twenty-six years of age, and went through the public school system.




perpend said:


> But in "owe" for example, it is a vowel. You might as well write "oh", but we don't.




I respectfully have to disagree here. I believe the pronunciation of "oh" is almost always identical to that of the name of the letter 'o'. A ssuming a Broadcast Standard North American accent, this is a homophone with the word "owe", and the "we" is silent. In "Queen's English" (Received Pronunciation), I believe this is the diphthong 'ou', and across regional dialects, it varies wildly.




perpend said:


> Mine is American English.




While I too am American, I'm not sure the term "American English" is particularly useful outside the context of variations in spelling/ phraseology — there are dozens of "American English" pronunciations, no?


I have only a casual grasp of the terminology, but myself I would say I code-switch variously between a distinctive "Northern Californian" accent, an "NBC" (non-shifted Northern Cities) accent, and a Transatlantic/Expatriate type accent, depending on context.

------

To no one in particular (anyone who stumbles across this in the future), I am using terms above as I understand them from articles like:

wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_English
wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cities_Vowel_Shift

And this series, which, I recommend very highly:
_<< --- link removed --- >>_


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## ewie

PaulQ said:


> there is no Welsh English


Is that "There is no Welsh English" in the same way that "There is no American English", Mr Q


PaulQ said:


> Spanish and Mandarin. (Welsh and  English are that far apart.)


They aren't quite _that_ far apart


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## PaulQ

ewie said:


> Is that "There is no Welsh English" in the same way that "There is no American English", Mr Q


Look you, boyo! The Welsh speak Welsh or English, isn’t it? They might have regional variations as distinguish many sorts of BE but to suggest there is a Welsh English (where Welsh and English are the nouns for the languages as opposed to the countries - which is how I understood it) is to suggest that there is an English Greek.





> They aren't quite _that_ far apart


Pffft! I don't go that far for my holidays. Their distance apart is so huge, it cannot be expressed in miles. I once spoke Welsh to a Chinese guy in Cardiff, and he understood me!


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## mplsray

PaulQ said:


> Look you, boyo! The Welsh speak Welsh or English, isn’t it? They might have regional variations as distinguish many sorts of BE but to suggest there is a Welsh English (where Welsh and English are the nouns for the languages as opposed to the countries - which is how I understood it) is to suggest that there is an English Greek.



From the Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, entry "Welsh English, n. and adj.":



> A. n.
> 
> The English language as spoken and written in Wales, or by Welsh people.
> 
> ...
> 
> 2003   B. Collins & I. M. Mees Pract. Phonetics & Phonol. 160   It is not surprising that Welsh English often has an echo of the old language about it.



So "Welsh English" is not like "English Greek," but like "American English," "Canadian English," "Scottish English," "Irish English" (AKA "Hiberno-English"), "Appalachian English," and so forth. In "Welsh English," Welsh, as seen by the OED definition, can refer either to the people or the country, whereas it refers only to the language when, for example, referring to a "Welsh-English bilingual dictionary."

As for the word _cwm_, it is a geological term which has been thoroughly naturalized in English (shown as such in, among other sources, the OED). [Addition: I see that *g--n* made essentially this point in an earlier post.]


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## PaulQ

mplsray said:


> From the Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, entry "Welsh English, n. and adj. So "Welsh English" is not like "English Greek,"


As I said, the way I understood the phrase, it is, see point 2 at #22. See also





PaulQ said:


> (where Welsh and English are the nouns for the  languages as opposed to the countries - which is how I understood  it)





> As for the word _cwm_, it is a geological term which has been thoroughly naturalized in English (shown as such in, among other sources, the OED). [Addition: I see that *g--n* made essentially this point in an earlier post.]


OED:





> *Etymology:*  			 <  Welsh _cwm_


It's a Welsh word and always will be. The English term is cirque, which is a new definition of the French word. Essentially, with cwm, we are using a Welsh word. This accounts for the 'w' being a vowel, which it isn't in English.


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## Loob

mplsray said:


> ... In English, the letters-as-vowels are taught as "a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y."





pops91710 said:


> ...
> I was taught "sometimes w and y".


Intriguing! I was taught that the "vowel letters" (NB) were *a-e-i-o-u* ~ no mention of *y* or *w*.

An AmE-BrE pedagogical difference, perhaps?


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## Miss Julie

I was taught sometimes y, but never w. The w makes a vowel sound only in conjunction with a real vowel (usually a, e, or o), but never by itself.


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## mplsray

Writing of the word cwm, *PaulQ* said:



> OED:It's a Welsh word and always will be. The English term is cirque, which is a new definition of the French word. Essentially, with cwm, we are using a Welsh word. This accounts for the 'w' being a vowel, which it isn't in English.



_Cwm_ means "valley" in Welsh, but in English the word is limited to referring to a particular type of valley. In this respect, it is exactly like the word _cirque_ as used in English (and the limited sense of _cirque_ occurred originally in French, according to the Oxford English Dictionary).

The Third Edition of the OED identifies words which are not thoroughly naturalized in English as "Not fully naturalized in English." It does this with, for example, _aberglaube, affaire,_ and _affiche. _It indicates no such limitation for _cwm_.


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## perpend

So, in "owe", "w" is not a vowel for you, Julie?


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## Loob

perpend said:


> So, in "owe", "w" is not a vowel for you, Julie?


Well, it's not a vowel _letter_ for me, owlman perp: the vowel letters are "o" and "e".


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## Miss Julie

perpend said:


> So, in "owe", "w" is not a vowel for you, Julie?



No...the o along with the w makes a vowel *sound*, but w is not a vowel _letter, _as Loob says.


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## perpend

Well, I'm old-school, then, with the others who learned that sometimes "y" and "w" can be vowels. (I'm perpend, Loob! (#32)). 

For me, if you say "bowel", then "w" is a consonant. You have to form your mouth to say the "w" in a certain way ("w" also a consonant in "way").

In "owe"---nothing. There is no "w" sound as in "way". It's essentially a mono-syllabic "o" or "oh".


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## Loob

perpend said:


> (I'm perpend, Loob! (#32)).


Ooops, sorry, edited!


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## Loob

Just going back a step or two....

BrE-speaking children are taught that the vowel letters are _a-e-i-o-u_. (Or, at least, they were when I was a child.)

It seems that AmE-speaking children are taught that the vowel letters are:
_a-e-i-o-u and sometimes y_
or
_a-e-i-o-u and sometimes w and y.

_I can understand the "and sometimes y'", given that the letter 'y' represents a vowel sound in eg *by*.

But I can't understand the "and sometimes 'w'.  'W' can certainly represent a vowel sound in Welsh (as discussed above) but it doesn't represent a vowel sound in English, to the best of my knowledge.

How do AmE-speaking teachers explain the "and sometimes w"?


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## Chasint

perpend said:


> Does "cym" have one or two syllables in Welsh English?


There is no such language as "Welsh English" unless you are referring to English as spoken in Wales - It is no different apart from the accent and a few idiomatic sayings!   The Welsh language has entirely different grammar and spelling from English and a limited shared vocabulary. 

(Oops - I see that PaulQ has already made this point. Apologies for repetiton)
____________________________________________________________
Note
You can see some discussions of Welsh on the Other Languages forum.


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## ewie

I was taught that the vowels are a, e, i, o, u and y (except when y is doing consonanty stuff) ... and ... erm ... w but only _kind of_ (and definitely not when it's doing consonanty stuff).

Nah, not really.

I used to _teach_ that the vowels are a, e, i, o and u.  Y is both a vowel and a consonant.  W, by contrast, is a bit of both


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## Miss Julie

Biffo said:


> There is no such language as "Welsh English".   The Welsh language has entirely different grammar and spelling from English and a limited shared vocabulary.



Welsh English = English as it is spoken in Wales. See post #26


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## ewie

Biffo said:


> There is no such language as "Welsh English".   The Welsh language has entirely different grammar and spelling from English and a limited shared vocabulary.




You might like to check out some of the intervening posts that you've not read, Biffo.

Cross-posted with Miss J.


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## Chasint

ewie said:


> You might like to check out some of the intervening posts that you've not read, Biffo.
> 
> Cross-posted with Miss J.


Yes, Thank you both for that. I have now made a note on my previous post. 

What happened was that perpend's question was at the end of a page and I somehow didn't notice the thread continued onto the following page. 

Forgive me father for I have sinned.


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## Loob

Sorry to be a bore: but how can anyone argue that "w" in English - in isolation - represents a vowel sound?

To repeat:





Loob said:


> How do AmE-speaking teachers explain the "and sometimes w"?


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## Wordsmyth

perpend said:


> _[...]_ For me, if you say "bowel", then "w" is a consonant. You have to form your mouth to say the "w" in a certain way ("w" also a consonant in "way").
> 
> In "owe"---nothing. There is no "w" sound as in "way". It's essentially a mono-syllabic "o" or "oh".


 The problem with that reasoning, perp, is that you'd also have to include_ g_, _h_ and _s_ as 'sometimes vowels': dou_gh_ (like o_w_e), fraca_s _ — and perhaps even_ r_ for non-rhotic speakers — and maybe some others I can't think of right now.

Most people would consider those as silent consonants. The same can be said for the _w_ in _owe._

Until I read this thread, I had never heard of _w_ being included in any list of English vowels. It's not like _y_, which, when it's a vowel, represents an actual vowel sound. In words like _owe_, the _w_ doesn't make a vowel sound. As you said, it makes no sound.

I'm also curious to know the answer to Loob's question.

Ws


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## perpend

It is/was based on the thread "pre-revival". I posted in #12 (a few years ago), before the thread was revived in #13 by g--n.

Maybe the teaching is archaic. But, it seems other people also learned at some point in time that "w" could be considered a vowel.

So, nothing more, and nothing less. I guess times have changed.


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## g--n

Loob said:


> Sorry to be a bore: but how can anyone argue that "w" in English - in isolation - represents a vowel sound?




Not a bore. This is why I find this so fascinating, and why I bothered to create an account here and revive this thread in the first place.


It can't really be justified, I don't think.




Loob said:


> How do AmE-speaking teachers explain the "and sometimes w"?




They don't. It just seems to be a rote schoolmarm's saying, repeated over and over. But when one is seven years old, one doesn't think to question it really.

This is also precisely why this bothers me so much.
Tomorrow morning, schoolchildren across America eager to learn English will wake up and be taught something just that appears to be just flat wrong.


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## g--n

perpend said:


> II guess times have changed.


They haven't, and thats also my point. I was taught this in school maybe ten years ago, in California public school.

I also have a bright young cousin in private school, age 8, in Brooklyn.
I just gave her a call.


"Can you name all the English vowels?"

"Duh! 'a' 'e' 'i' 'o' 'u' and sometimes 'y' and 'w'."


"What's a word where 'y' is the vowel?"

"Lynx!"


"And 'w'?"

"..."


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## perpend

Well, have her ask her teachers, and we'll all be wiser.


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## Wordsmyth

g--n said:


> _[...] _Tomorrow morning, schoolchildren across America eager to learn English will wake up and be taught something just that appears to be just flat wrong.


 ... Much as people used to be taught that the sun revolved around the Earth. I bet Copernicus was made to stand in the corner with the dunce's cap on! 

Ws


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## g--n

Wordsmyth said:


> ... Much as people used to be taught that the sun revolved around the Earth.



Or (more recently) that Pluto was a planet .


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## Chasint

Incidentally, somewhere along the way someone suggested that there are no English words without a vowel. I offer the following verb.  It doesn't even contain 'y' or 'w'.

_*.   Definition of TSK-TSK*
.   transitive verb_
*.   :*  to express disapproval of by or as if by uttering tsk
_.   intransitive verb_
*.   :*  to tsk-tsk someone or something
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tsk-tsk


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## g--n

Biffo said:


> Incidentally, somewhere along the way someone suggested that there are no English words without a vowel. I offer the following verb. It doesn't even contain 'y' or 'w'.



 Ok. That doesn't mean there is_ no vowel _though. Its merely an onomatopoetic sound that very recently has become a 'word'.


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## Chasint

g--n said:


> Ok. That doesn't mean there is_ no vowel _though. Its merely an onomatopoetic sound that very recently has become a 'word'.


Please explain. 

 (a) There is no written vowel.  Do you agree?
 (b) There is no vowel sound. Do you agree?

Where is your mysterious vowel?

By the way, 1943 isn't all that recent. I think 70 plus years is a respectable age for a word.


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## Cagey

Several people, starting with perpend in post                                                                                           #12,  refer to 'w' as 'contributing to' a vowel sound. 

This view is explained more fully in The Straight Dope website's  answer to the question 
_"Is it true "W" can be used as a vowel?"__Try "how," which is phonetically equivalent to "hou," as in house. Ou  and ow are diphthongs — that is, two vowel sounds that kind of slide  together when you say them. W and Y are often called semivowels because  they go both ways, as it were, depending on the company they keep within  the word. [....] In cow, for instance, W is a vowel, but make the word coward  and you can hear W working as a consonant._​
Some posters hold that a letter is a vowel only if can represent a vowel sound when used by itself; for them the above explanation will not justify considering 'w' a vowel. This is an issue of terminology -- and people's choice will depend which definition they find most useful.    The differences in opinion are probably also related to some ambiguity as to whether we are talking about letters or the sounds they represent.    

In any case, the above explains the basis on which the letter 'w' might be included as a vowel.  I don't remember that it was ever explained to me, but that doesn't mean it wasn't.


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## g--n

I have been able to unpack this a bit, I think.

From: oxforddictionaries.com/words/is-the-letter-y-a-vowel-or-a-consonant



> (This consonant sound, like that of the letter W, is sometimes called a 'semivowel' because it is made in a similar way to a vowel, but functions in contrast to vowels when used in words.)



Unless one happens to be a student of classifying phonology, (or stop reading at the first comma) one is bound to come to the wrong answer. Why? The OED entry itself is both incorrect and contradictory.



> semivowel |ˈˌsɛmiˈvaʊ(ə)l|
> noun
> a speech sound intermediate between a vowel and a consonant, e.g., w or y.
> ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from semi- + vowel, on the pattern of Latin semivocalis.
> 
> [Online version: click "more examples".]
> 
> "The play opens with a speech by Flavius (spelled ‘Flauius’ in the old Latin style where u and v are not distinguished since the latter is just the semivowel corresponding to the vowel represented by the former)."



There is no salient concept of an "intermediate consonant-vowel". Without getting over-academic about it, vowels are the sounds that allow one to move between one consonant and another. The example refers to something else altogether, where the writer apparently decided to invent a word for "traditional Italic U/V". 

To be clear, a 'semivowel', as I know it, is a deprecated term for a 'glide'. A semivowel is not a vowel, but a type of consonant (though this use definitely does not date to the mid 16th century as attested).

And the Latin semivocalis is ...a musical term?


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## g--n

Biffo said:


> Where is your mysterious vowel?



I believe it would be in the part of that definition that you omitted from the copy-paste?

tsk-tsk *verb* \ˈtisk-ˌtisk\

It isn't a question of "respectability", merely that scholarship did not consider onomatopoeia to be words until the last century or so. See the word 'psst': this would be a better candidate for what you propose. There are many 20th century additions like this.


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## Loob

Cagey said:


> ... This view is explained more fully in The Straight Dope website's  answer to the question
> _"Is it true "W" can be used as a vowel?"__Try "how," which is phonetically equivalent to "hou," as in house. Ou  and ow are diphthongs — that is, two vowel sounds that kind of slide  together when you say them. ..._​


Thanks for this, Cagey!

I confess, I was still a bit puzzled when I first read it, because it was talking about vowel _sounds_ rather than vowel _letters_.  

But I think what it's saying is that "w" alternates with "u" in vowel digraphs - so we have the spelling "now" alongside "noun", "new" alongside "neutral", "clown" alongside "clout", "caw" alongside "caul" etc.

To that extent, it makes sense to add "and sometimes w" to the list of vowel letters.  But it's not nearly as vowelly as any of the others, even "y", is it?


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## Chasint

g--n said:


> I believe it would be in the part of that definition that you omitted from the copy-paste?...


Thanks I didn't spot that in the heading. I was focusing on the actual definition that came after. I notice that we are drifting from the main topic. For that reason I shall open a thread specifically on "tsk-tsk" and post a link to it here when I have done so.


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## Andygc

g--n said:


> The OED entry itself is both incorrect and contradictory.


 The OED is a dictionary. It tells us the meaning of words, based on their use. It collects examples, thus deriving its definitions. In this case 





> A vocal sound that partakes of the nature of a vowel and of a consonant; a letter representing such a sound.
> 
> The general literary use echoes that of the Roman grammarians, who applied the term to the spirants and liquids (including nasals), f, l, m, n, r, s, x. As a technical term the word now most commonly denotes only w and y, but sometimes it includes these together with the liquids and nasals, chiefly in their non-syllabic values.


The entry is illustrated with 8 examples dating from 1530 to 1876. 

You have quoted Oxford Dictionaries online, which is not the OED, and have, it seems, mistaken the meaning of the entry. "On the pattern of semivocalis" means no more than what it says - the person who coined "semivowel" in the 16th century used the pattern (the structural form) of "semivocalis" as his model. The normal Latin context of "semivocalis" is irrelevant. As it happens the English word "semivocal" was originally used in reference to music, but that meaning is obsolete. The current meaning relates to semivowels, and for a change we can quote Webster, albeit found in the OED





> 1828–32   Webster _Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang._,   _Semivocal_, pertaining to a semivowel; half-vocal; imperfectly sounding.



Your criticism of the text illustrating the Oxford online entry is also off the point. The dictionary uses it as an example; if does not endorse the writer's comments on the Latin 'u'.

What is your justification for saying the OED is incorrect? It is certainly not contradictory.


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## Wordsmyth

Cagey said:


> _[...] _This view is explained more fully in The Straight Dope website's answer to the question
> _"Is it true "W" can be used as a vowel?"__Try "how," which is phonetically equivalent to "hou," as in house. Ou and ow are diphthongs — that is, two vowel sounds that kind of slide together when you say them. W and Y are often called semivowels because they go both ways, as it were, depending on the company they keep within the word. [....] In cow, for instance, W is a vowel, but make the word coward and you can hear W working as a consonant. __[...]_​


I was almost convinced by this, until Andy's OED extract made me think about <r>. ...


> The general literary use echoes that of the Roman grammarians, who applied the term to the spirants and liquids (including nasals), f, l, m, n, r, s, x. As a technical term the word now most commonly denotes only w and y, but sometimes it includes these together with the liquids and nasals, chiefly in their non-syllabic values.


 Compare _"for"__/"forage"_ with _"cow"/"coward":
_- In_ "for"_, the _r_ modifies the sound of the vowel _o_, and (for rhotic speakers) the word ends with a trace of the beginning of the _r_. In _"forage"_, the _r_ is fully consonantal.
- In_ "cow"_, the _w_ modifies the sound of the vowel _o_, and the word ends with a trace of the beginning of the _w_. In _"coward"_, the _w_ is fully consonantal.

So to my way of thinking:
- If _r_ is a consonant in _"for"_, then _w_ is a consonant in _"cow"_.
- If _w_ is a vowel in _"cow"_, then _r_ is a vowel in _"for".
_
It crossed my mind that non-rhoticity might complicate the argument, but I think not. If the _r_ is a consonant, then a non-rhotic speaker is simply treating it as a silent consonant, not transforming it into a vowel.

No doubt a phonetician could find a San Andreas-sized fault in my reasoning, but for the time being I'm still more inclined to think of _w_ (in words ending in _-ow, -aw, -ew_) as a consonant modifying the preceding vowel, rather than as a vowel in itself.

Ws


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## Cagey

I think your non-rhoticity may influence your view.  When I hear a non-rhotic speaker, I hear the 'missing' r as a vowel sound -- a 'schwa', as I learned to call it in posts like this one                                                                                           #44. 

That would be an argument for including 'r' as 'sometimes a vowel' in the list taught to children who speak non-rhotic varieties of English. 

However, aside from that, this seems to me primarily a question of terminology.  At the age at which children are taught to identify vowels -- which is when they learn to 'sound out' words -- it's likely that the terminology will be simplified.  Later on, they can learn more precise terms.


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## Wordsmyth

Cagey said:


> I think your non-rhoticity may influence your view. When I hear a non-rhotic speaker, I hear the 'missing' r as a vowel sound -- a 'schwa', as I learned to call it in posts like this one #44. _ [...] _


 Well, not *my* non-rhoticity, 'cos I'm not non-rhotic. I was brought up in SW England. I don't have the local accent, so I don't pronounce those _'__r'_s as strongly as many rhotic speakers, but they're never completely silent.

I don't think it's actually the 'missing' _r_ you're hearing as a schwa. In that excellent post you linked to (), the discussion was about "ther" being pronounced as "the", the _r _being silent. The schwa is the _e_ of "the". In "for" (if unstressed, which it usually is), the _o_ can be a schwa. But in "nor", "four", "war", there's no schwa: the vowel sound is /ɔː/, regardless of whether the r is silent or not.


Cagey said:


> _[...] _That would be an argument for including 'r' as 'sometimes a vowel' in the list taught to children who speak non-rhotic varieties of English._ [...] _


 Yes, for those who see _w_ as 'sometimes a vowel', I agree. As I suggested above, "If _w _is a vowel in _cow_, then_ r_ is a vowel in _for_" (though _four_ is a clearer example, as it's always stressed) — and I don't think the parallel depends on rhoticity: the _w _in _cow_ can be more or less strongly formed (even as a terminal sound), depending on the speaker, just as the _r_ in _four _can be. 

Anyway, that OED extract does indeed allow for the possibility of _r_ being a semivowel, along with _w_: _"__the word now most commonly denotes only w and y, but *sometimes* it includes these together with the liquids and nasals, chiefly in their non-syllabic values"_. 

However, I still have a problem with that 'Straight Dope' explanation. They have _w_ as a vowel in _cow_, but as a consonant in _coward_. So it would also be a consonant in "the _cow and_ the horse". So they should be saying that the _w_ in _cow_ can be a vowel or a consonant. Sounds unnecessarily complicated to me ... I think I'll just stick to it being a consonant.

Ws


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## bennymix

Wordsmyth said in part, post #61



> However, I still have a problem with that 'Straight Dope' explanation. They have _w_ as a vowel in _cow_, but as a consonant in _coward_. So it would also be a consonant in "the _cow and_ the horse". So they should be saying that the _w_ in _cow_ can be a vowel or a consonant. Sounds unnecessarily complicated to me ... I think I'll just stick to it being a consonant.



That's a good point.    I'd stick to the point that 'w' in 'cow' is a vowel, or one constituent {a faint 'oo' sound} of a complex vowel sound (diphthong).    So in 'coward' as I say it, 'w' is almost wholly in this role, unless there was an intentional break  "Cow---ward!"     For 'w' to be a consonant, we need something like "Go wipe your face!"   or, in one word,  'away' as in "Go away."

An interesting example would be, in contrast to 'coward,' 'towing' (the boat).   Here, in my opinion, 'w' contributes nothing to the vowel and is a gentle, perhaps imperceptible consonant in the word as a whole.   The word can sound like "toe--ing" quite often, rather than "toe--wing."  "Towing" and "going" in fact sound like a fine rhyme to me, so perhaps the best analysis is to say 'w' may be silent, in both 'tow' and 'towing'.


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## g--n

Andygc said:


> You have quoted Oxford Dictionaries online, which is not the OED





You are 99% correct, and the mistake is mine.

But please note I only _linked_ the "Oxford Dictionaries *Online*" for the benefit of others. Properly speaking, I was quoting from these two volumes:


> Oxford Dictionary of English 3rd edition
> Copyright © 2010, 2012 by Oxford University Press





> New Oxford American Dictionary 3rd edition © 2010, 2012 by Oxford University Press




My mistake is exactly identical to the one made here:

gregferro.com/apple-osx-dictionary-to-proper-british-english-oxford-oed

[Though I did not _learn_ to do this from this post, but have been doing exactly this (and making the same mistake as the author) since perhaps age thirteen.]


Feebly in my defense:

— That post above is by a Brit and written toward non-Americans, so perhaps my American idiocy is not entirely to blame.

— I am a twenty-six year old computer programmer by trade, with a hobbyist's interest in this subject. I do not believe I have ever actually had the opportunity to see the OED, nor even the "ODE", in print. I knew only that Mac OS X installed a 60MB package called "Oxford Dictionaries" by default.

— I did cite this copyright information earlier in the thread, in re: the word 'cwm'.

— I am not the only person — in this thread, alone — to have quoted these texts and to have said they were citing the "OED" but in fact were quoting the "ODE".


Even had I known of the distinction previously, I it think it likely I would have come to the opposite conclusion of what is explained at:

wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Dictionary_of_English




Andygc said:


> Your criticism of the text illustrating the Oxford online entry is also off the point. The dictionary uses it as an example...
> It is certainly not contradictory.



In the "ODE", given only the brief definition and the example there, to me, this was "wrong and contradictory", as the example in no way follows from the definition and therefore is no "example" at all. This might not technically be "in contradiction", you're right. But I still hold it to be "wrong", and certainly inconsistent.


Andygc said:


> What is your justification for saying the OED is incorrect?



I have none whatsoever it seems. What I have instead appears to be a large and growing grudge against the Oxford University Press.


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## Wordsmyth

Benny, I can see the sense of what you're saying in your #62 — and I think it's convinced me to give up trying to define what _w_ *is*, other than that it's a letter!

As for how it functions, it seems there are arguments in favour of it acting as a consonant, or a vowel (or at least half a diphthong), or just being silent.

Ws


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