# Sentences/Words consisting of vowels only



## Knuð

Let's count *y* as a vowel in English, Norwegian, etc., but not in languages such as Spanish for example. You can decide yourselves!

I'm looking for sentences (and also words) that are pronounced with vowel sounds only. This Norwegian example was taken from a conversation after the first day at some school in Trøndelag in Norway. First the translated version:

Mother: Which class are you in?
Son: Me? I am in A!
Mother: And you, then? Which class are you in?
Friend: *Me? I am in A too!*

Now the version in written Bokmål (the most common way of writing Norwegian).

Mor: Hvilken klasse er du i?
Sønn: Jeg er i A, jeg!
Mor: Og du da? Hvilken klasse er du i?
Venn: *Jeg er i A jeg og!*

Here is what it would sound like in Trøndersk, the dialect in Trøndelag:

Mor: Hvilken klasse e du i?
Sønn: Æ e i A, æ!
Mor: Å du da? Hvilken klasse e du i?
Venn: *Æ e i A æ å!*

Do you have any other examples?


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## diegodbs

Spanish:

Hoy hay ahí algo (today there is something there)

pron: /oi ai aí algo/

("h" is mute, and "y" is pronounced /i/


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## zaby

I can't find a sentence in French but here are some words :
oui (yes)
oie (goose)
ou (or)
à/au (at/at the)
a/ai/eu and other conjugated forms of "avoir" (to have)
eau (water)
ois/oyais/ouïs/oyez and other conjugated forms of "ouïr" (archaic verb for 'to hear') -consonants are mute
aïeux (forbears ?) - _x_ is mute


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## diegodbs

English:

- I owe you a ewe


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## Knuð

^This is a bad sentence, as the word "you" is not only pronounced with vowel-sounds.

Edit: Sorry. The word "ewe" as well.


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## diegodbs

You're right.


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## Outsider

There should be a few in Portuguese, too:

*E aí?* _What's up?_ (Brazilian)
*E é? / E é.* _And is it? / And (so) it is._


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## tinkerbell0916

I can't find a sentence, 
but here are some wods in Japanese with only vowels:
あ!(a)=oh!
絵(e）=picture
胃(i)=solar plexus
尾(o)=tail

So I guess you can say "A! E."
and it'll mean "Oh! picture."


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## Flaminius

*Japanese:*

家 ie: house
覆う ōu: to cover
鵜 u: phalacrocoracine

お家を覆う鵜
o-ie-o ōu u.
A phalacrocoracine that covers your house.


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## jonquiliser

He... in Galician, you can make a nice little phrase all in vowels:

Eu ía ao Eo (Eo is a river). And with it's additional affirmative:
Eu ía ao Eo, ao Eo ía eu.

Does it count?


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## astlanda

There should be many other Japanese examples like:
青い 'aoi'=blue　いえ 'ie'=no　言う 'iu'=to say　上 'ue'=above　愛 'ai'=love　いい 'ii'=good etc.

There are many words in Estonian, but let's make a sentence:
Õe uue aia au ei (h)üia äia õue. = The glory of sister's new fence wouldn't shout into the backyard of her father-in-law.
Sounds like a silly proverb.

In my dialect we don't pronounce 'h' in the beginning of a word.


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## astlanda

いいえ 'ie'=no in Japanese.
My mistake again.


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## Kraus

In Italian there are:

aio (tutor), and several interjections: ahi, ahia, ohi (ouch), ehi (hey), uhi (alas).


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## tanzhang

this is rediculous - umm let me try...

In Tagalog:

Oo - Yes
 iooo - going to say yes
oo inoo - Yes, he said yes


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## sound shift

Italian personal pronoun "io": "I" in English


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## astlanda

I was wondering, what is this 'phalacrocoracine' and found that

鵜 【う】 (n) = cormorant;


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## Outsider

Portuguese:

*aia*: maid

not quite vowels only, but:

*tuiuiú*: a species of bird
*Piauí*: a region of Brazil


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## Hakro

Finnish:

*ei* = no
*yö* = night (y pronounced as ü in German or u in French)
*aie* = intention
*auo* = open (imperative or negative form of the verb to open)
*oio* = straighten (imperative or negative form of the verb to straighten)
*ui* = swim (imperative or negative form of the verb to swim)
*Ii* = a place in northern Finland
*Io-aie ei ui: EU ei aio, Ii Oy ei oio* = The intention concerning (to explore) the Jupiter moon Io is sinking: European Union doesn't intend (to do it), the Ii company doesn't straighten (the misconception about the project).


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## Demurral

I saw this thread some time ago...and couldn't answer...now I  can:

In catalan: a l'ou hi ha ouaires. (There are egg-sellers inside the egg).
"H" are not pronounced. some sounds are not "vowels", but "glide", but it's O.K., isn't?


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## Lugubert

A well known Swedish example from a story by the poet and writer Gustaf Fröding is the dialectal

Å i åa ä e ö.

"and in the creek, there's an island"


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## MaxJ

I can only think of words:

Ei= Egg
Ui= Onion


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## astlanda

^How about u, je, jou  & jij ?


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## MaxJ

^The j is not a vowel. But yes "u"(you) is a good one.


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## arsham

oo = he/she
e = connection particle
o = and
aay = ouch
ah! = shit!


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## Kanes

Bulgarian...

ae - come on!
ei - hey
ewa - come
eia - there she is
i - and
e - is
u - in a place
a - but
awa - but (dif. case)
ia - tell someone to stop and do something else... before teling what
waw - ...same
ъ -uh?


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## Nanon

French has _myriads _of words consisting of vowels only, or with written consonants that are mute.
For example, [o] can be au, aux, eau, eaux, aulx, haut, hauts, ô, oh !... etc...

 NB - "Oui" does not qualify because it is pronounced with a semivocal: [wi].


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## ahshav

Hebrew has at least one word that are composed solely of Mater lectionis:

או - oh (meaning "or")


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## Lugubert

The first Chinese dictionary I grabbed from my shelves (not one of the largest) has 29 different entries for a and ai. There's even 皑皑 ái'ái "brightly white; snow white". That's in 3 pages of a 800+ pages dictionary.


ahshav said:


> Hebrew has at least one word that are composed solely of Mater lectionis:
> 
> או - oh (meaning "or")


Nitpick: plural = matres lectionis.

Anyway, as you describe it, you're correct, but at least from a general Semitic or Bible Hebrew point of view, the א  is a consonant. The only syllable in Bible Hebrew that begins with a vowel occurs when the conjunction ו 'and' immediately precedes a labial consonant. In those cases, the normal [wI] becomes a .


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## Sand_Sea

Hello! 
In Romanian: (we also have as vowels : ă,â,î )
Pronouns: 
ea - she; 
ei - they;
eu - I;
Interjection: au! - auch; ioi ! - difficult to translate , oa! (baby's crying); 
Nouns: ou - egg, ouă - eggs ; oaie- sheep (singular), oi- sheep(plural); oaia - the sheep (sing., articulated).
And that's all I can think of right now.


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## Sand_Sea

Oh, and something more it came into my mind just now.   I managed to form a whole sentence using just vowels 

*Aia e o oaie.  

* aia = shorter form of "aceea", meaning "that"(kind of informal)
 e = "to be" verb present form, 3rd pers, sg;
 o = undefined article;
 oaie = sheep .

That's a sheep. ^_^


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## Lugubert

I have tried the Internet, but in vain, so I must quote from memory. There must be any number of examples in the Middle Indian Apabhramsha dialects (ca. 1000 CE). The Sanskrit word _agatah_ ('not-gone'), becomes in Apabhramsha _aao_ (initial a in both words and the final Ap. o are long, second Ap. a is short).


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## Fred_C

astlanda said:


> I was wondering, what is this 'phalacrocoracine' and found that
> 
> 鵜 【う】 (n) = cormorant;


 Perhaps Flaminius meant "Plalacrocoracidae" ?
Anyway, Phalacrocorax is the latin word used as the genus name in the binomial naming of cormorants.


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## Outsider

Here's a funny one from Brazilian Portuguese:

Uai é uai, uai!

"_Uai_ means _uai_, _uai_!" _Uai_ is an interjection of surprise that sounds like "why" in English.


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## kusurija

Japanese: (slightly forced/artificial)
青い葵や青い魚[aoi aoi ya aoi uo] blue/green hollyhock and blue/green fish


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## Demurral

^The Y in ya is not vocalic. It is a consonantic sound...but I liked it!! ^^


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## Hermocrates

*English*:

 Euouae


> According to the _Guinness Book of World Records_, it is the longest word in the English language which is made up of nothing but vowels; it is also the English word with the most consecutive vowels.


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## Lugubert

^I don't regard it as a word, but an abbreviation. It doesn't even attain acronym status.

For sentences, my Swedish dialectal quote _åiåaäeö_ will stay uncontested. For sufficiently long words with a maximal vowel percentage, I vote the Italian _cuoiaio_, 'leather works shop'.


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## dinji

Finnish has:

_yö_ 'night' and
_Ii_ is a name of a municipality

Finnish has a very high ratio of vowels to consonants on an average:

The randomly chosen phrase "words consisting of vowels only" could for instance translate into:

_ainoastaan ääntiöistä koostuvia sanoja _


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## Spiritoso78

Ciao,

there an italian word,too, written AIA, which means the farmyard! L' AIA

Furthermore in my language L'AIA is The Hague (NL).

Bye


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## astlanda

dinji said:


> Finnish has:
> _yö_ 'night' and
> _Ii_ is a name of a municipality



It has probably some more:
ei = no

, but it's surprising, that even though Estonian tends to have lost a lot of vowels
(E.G: Estonian:hernest vs. Finnish: herneestä = 'pea' Elative)
, it still has much more words composed without consonants than Finnish does. The reason is, that we have lost some crucial consonants as well.
(E.G: 
Estonian:õue = 'garden' Genitive vs. Finnish: oven = 'door' Genitive
or
Estonian:aia vs. Finnish: aidan = 'fence' Genitive
)


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## Hyper Squirrel

'Aye' is English example.


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## DrWatson

dinji said:


> Finnish has:
> 
> _yö_ 'night' and
> _Ii_ is a name of a municipality
> 
> Finnish has a very high ratio of vowels to consonants on an average:
> 
> The randomly chosen phrase "words consisting of vowels only" could for instance translate into:
> 
> _ainoastaan ääntiöistä koostuvia sanoja _


I can add a couple more to the list.

*ui* '(s/he) swims'
*aie* 'intention'
*auo*! 'open!' (2nd person singular imperative of aukoa, 'to open repeatedly' )
*aio*! 'intend!' (from aikoa, 'will, be going to, intend')
*oio*! 'rectify! straighten!' (from oikoa, 'straighten, rectify')


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## Hakro

The ultimate word in Finnish is "hääyöaieoionta" with 10 vowels in a row. It means "a correction of the intention of spending the wedding night".


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## sokol

Here's a nice dialogue in Austrian which also mainly has vowels in it:

A: I hob an Anser kriagt. (I got an A.)
B: Des is net fair. (That's not fair.)
C: Des sog i aa! (I'd say that too.)
D: I aa! (Me, I'd say that too.)
A: I e aa! = IPA *[i e a]* (no diphtongs, with syllabic breaks between the vowels, all vowels half-long) (I also agree with you = Me, I'd also say so. = Meaning: I agree that I didn't deserve it (but I'll take it nevertheless).)

Austrian dialects have loads of vowels, and also words consisting of vowels only.
The shortest one (that is, the shortest "content word": noun, verb, adjective/adverb) is "ö" - meaning "oil". (The same exists in Scandinavian languages where however it means "beer".)


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## dinji

DrWatson said:


> I can add a couple more to the list.
> 
> *ui* '(s/he) swims'
> *aie* 'intention'
> *auo*! 'open!' (2nd person singular imperative of aukoa, 'to open repeatedly' )
> *aio*! 'intend!' (from aikoa, 'will, be going to, intend')
> *oio*! 'rectify! straighten!' (from oikoa, 'straighten, rectify')


 
One curiosity: morpho-phonemically analysed the four last ones end in a mute glottal stop (consonant), which also appears phonetically if the next word beginns with a vowel. The evidence includes a phenomenon called consonant gradation and is probably a bit too complicated to be explained here. So for the purpose of this forum I suppose we should accept that they consist of vowels only.


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## amikama

ahshav said:


> Hebrew has at least one word that are composed solely of Mater lectionis:
> 
> או - oh (meaning "or")


...and *אי *(_i_, "island").


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## Lugubert

sokol said:


> The shortest one (that is, the shortest "content word": noun, verb, adjective/adverb) is "ö" - meaning "oil". (The same exists in Scandinavian languages where however it means "beer".)


Nope, Scandinavian beer is _öl_ (like German "oil" but not capitalized) (Sw.; Da, No _øl_). Swedish _ö_ means "island".


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## sokol

Lugubert said:


> Nope, Scandinavian beer is _öl_ (like German "oil" but not capitalized) (Sw.; Da, No _øl_). Swedish _ö_ means "island".


Oh, so I really mixed up "beer" with "island", I'm embarassed.  

And it (= island) is "ø" in Danish and "øy" in Norvegian.


Another nice vowel-only (content) word: "egg" in German:
- standard language "ei" /ai/
- Austro-Bavarian: "oa" (Austrian rural, Bavarian); "ei" /ɛ:/ (Austrian urban)


And also Letzebuergisch: "ee", Dutch: "ei".


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## Hyper Squirrel

English:
-Eye
-Oy (slang?)
-You


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## kusurija

Flaminius said:


> *Japanese:*
> 
> 家 ie: house
> 覆う ōu: to cover
> 鵜 u: phalacrocoracine
> 
> お家を覆う鵜
> o-ie-o ōu u.
> A phalacrocoracine that covers your house.


 
"Synthetics":
青い家を覆う青い魚
aoi-ie-o ōu aoi-uo.
青い aoi: blue(pale)
魚 uo: fish
Blue fish that covers blue house.


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## tpettit

French : "manger du p*ain hun en on*ze jours" [*ɛ̃œ̃ɑ̃õ*] 4 consecutive nasal vowels ("to eat Hun bread in eleven days")
*eux ont eu un houx en haut et ont hu*rlé [*øõyœ̃uɑ̃oeõy*] 10 consecutive vowels (informal pronunciation - optional liaisons not made) ("as for them, they caught some holly upstairs and yelled")


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## Favara

Ei iaia, hi ha ou hui, oi? (_Hey grandma, there's egg today, right?_)
Consonant-less words are indeed extremely rare in Catalan.


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## sakvaka

Another Finnish phrase:

_Ai ai-ai ei yöui?_
Are you claiming that the aye-aye doesn't swim at night?

In Finnish there are 8 different wovels - so that's not very much - but each of them can be used either short or long (y or yy) or as a part of a diphtong - they're 18 in number. 
An example of a Finnish sentence with a lot of diphtongs:

_Suomen kouluissa usein ihaillaan syksyisinä työpäivinä meidän poikien höyläystöiden kauneutta._


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## dwana49

I know we said Y isn't a vowel in Spanish but PRETEND for a minute and we get a record 11:

Dudo que ahuehué haya oído. (I doubt that the cypress tree has heard.)

IPA: 'du do ke a u e u 'e 'a i a o 'i do

Hooray for being two years late!


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## 810senior

[Moderator's Note: moved from another thread]
Japanese can make a long sentence where only vowels were used.

For instance:
あいをいいあうあおいうおをおえ(ai-o-ii-au-aoi-uo-o-oe) give chase to blue fish which talk about love each other
あおいうおをあえおおいおうをおえ(aoi-uo-o-ae-ooi-ou-o-oe) season a blue fish, chase after many kings
あおいえをおおいうえへおいをおう(aoi-e-o-ooi-ue-e-oi-o-ou) cover a blue picture and chase after a nephew upwards

vocabulary:
あいai love
いえie house
おおうoou to cover
おうou to chase
いうiu to say
うおuo fish
うえue upward
いおうiou sulfur
あおうaou let's see, let's meet
あえae seasoning something (with)
あうau to match
あうau to meet, to see
あおいaoi blue
おおいooi many, much of etc.


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## bigic

Serbian:
a - shortened form of _ali_ (but)
i - and
o - about
u - in
I can't think of any other words.


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## franknagy

Hungarian:
fiaiéi.
Here f is the only consonant.
The word meas "some objects - mentioned in a previous question - are owned by his/her sons.
_- Janiéi ezek a kalapácsok?
- Nem, a fiaiéi._

- Does Johnny have these hammers?
- No, his sons have them.

Let me show the stepwise formation of the 1 c + 5 w word:
fiú = boy or son,
fia = his/her son,
fiai = his/her sons
fiaié = of his/her sons (singular possession),
fiaiéi = of his/her sons (plural possession).


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## Tylon Foxx

Presenting South Jutlandic dialect of Danish:
reminder: Danish vowels are A,E,I,O,U,Y,Æ,Ø and Å

sentence: Æ æ u å æ ø u i æ å
Danish: Jeg er ude på øen ude i åen
English (direct translation): I am out on the island out in the creek

Æ can mean "is", "I" or be used in the same way as "the"

There is a big deal of word overlap in this accent, for instance, "mojn" means both hello and goodbye


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## apmoy70

A couple of ancient Greek phrases almost completely (bear with the final "s" in the first phrase's third word and the initial voiceless "h" in a few aspirated ones) consisting of vowels:

*«Οἷα ἡ ἔως, ὦ υἱέ ἀεί εἴη» hoî̯ă hē éōs ô hui̯é ăeí̯ eí̯ē* --> _Like the dawn may (your life) always be, o son (meaning bright)_

*«Ὦ υἱέ ἀεἰ ὕει οὗ εἶ» ô hui̯é ăeí̯ húei̯ hoû eî̯* --> _It always rains where you are, o son_

And a MoGr one (presenting also the iotacism in the modern language):

*«Οι υιοί ή οι ιοί;»* [i iˈi i i iˈi] --> _the sons or the viruses?_


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## Karton Realista

Polish:
o - about; an exclamation of surprise; preceeds direct pleas to god, homeland, ideals or important people
i - and
a - different and , kinda similar to but but not quite there; used to contrast two nouns, to connect two different part-sentences, like she has a dog and he has a cat: ona ma psa, a on - kota
u - at (somebody's place)


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## ilocas2

song UIUAA


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## Red Arrow

In French:

à  [a ~ ɑ]
as / a [a ~ ɑ]
es / est [ɛ] *
et [e]
ai [e]
y [ i ]
au / aux [o]
eu / eue / eus / eues [y]
ou [ u ]
où [ u ]
un [œ̃] *
en [ɛ̃] *
on [ɔ̃] *

*The consonants are only pronounced when followed by another vowel: [ɛ] => [ɛ.t], [œ̃] => [œ̃.n], etc...
This is called liaison.


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