🚀 go-pugleaf

btiffany@pbs.org writes:

> In article <TMB.91May22102757@volterra.ai.mit.edu>, tmb@ai.mit.edu
> 	(Thomas M. Breuel) writes:
> 
> > In any case, I believe most dialects of English already have more
> > vowels than any of the languages you mention (certainly more than
> > Spanish). English has somewhere around 14 vowels.
> 
> FOURTEEN?  Well, when I was knee high from the floor in school they taught me
> only FIVE:  A E I O and U!  It was mentioned that sometimes Y can act like
> a vowel, but it is still a consonant.  So at most you might say English has
> 5.5 vowels.  But 14??  Where did you come up with such a figure?

The confusion comes from the use of "vowel" to mean both "vowel letter"
and "vowel sound".  In German, Spanish, Italian, Maaori, etc. the
correspondence is trivial.  As a consequence, you know how to pronounce
a word from its spelling, even if you have never seen it before.  This
is not the case in English.

In German the names of the vowels a e i o u are also their values.
Wenn also jemand "a" sagt, dann ist "a" zugleich der Name, der Laut,
und der Buchstabe.

In English, there is much confusion.  All vowel names (except "e") are
diphthongs:

                            distinct uses.................
a's name sounds like e+i    ale chaotic care add account arm ask sofa
                            mustard was talk
e's name sounds like i      eve here event end silent maker
                            heir swerve ewe sergeant
i's name sounds like a+i    ice ill charity
                            police fir
o's name sounds like o+u    old obey orb odd soft connect oil food foot out
                            women! other wisdom minor work
u's name sounds like i+u    cube unite urn up circus nature
                            rude put
y's name sounds like u+a+i  yet
			    sky hymn martyr myrrh

(most of the examples are taken from Merriam-Webster Pronunciation Key)

Note the sounds and letters in these words: herd bird word curd earn

Note that the German Umlaute (ae oe ue) are not diphthongs.  German diphthongs
are ai au ei eu aeu.  (aeu is ae + u -- looks like au with " over the a)
-- 
Peter Renzland @ Ontario Ministry of Health  416/964-9141  peter@ontmoh.UUCP