words without vowels?

I hope Claire won't mind her dispute with her boyfriend being published on the web, but here's an interesting question a few people have raised recently regarding vowels in english. Below is my reply and some links to other interesting discussion about the same subject.

Hi Julian,
my name is Clare, I live in Australia. I came upon your English blog, which I found very interesting, and wondered, since you appear to have a love of languages, if you could help me with a little bet i have
going...?
My boyfriend told me yesterday that we in fact have 6 vowels, not only A, E, I, O and U but also Y. He thinks that he was taught in prep (first grade in primary school) that every word must contain a vowel,
and if it doesn't, then it isn't a word. He said that every time a word doesn't contain a vowel, such a sky, by or my, that a Y always takes the place of a vowel, therefore it must be a vowel! I think this is so stupid, can you please clear up this mystery, I have money riding on this!!
Thanks so much,
Clare

Hi Clare,
The answer depends on whether you are talking about graphic or phonetic vowels. Phonetically speaking, dictionaries say that there are 20 vowel sounds in English, but some people say in fact there are closer to 35, depending on accents. Graphically speaking there are 5, the ones we all know. But there are dipthongs (as in 'like'..... say it slowly and you will see that there are in fact two vowel sounds in there, something like a shortened 'aeee' sound) and even tripthongs (3 sounds together). Graphically 'y' is not classed as a vowel, but it is commonly used as one, mostly because the words containing it were originally Scandinavian or German or from other languages where it is classed as a vowel. 'Sky' for example was
originally Scandinavian, probably brought to Britain by the vikings. Does this make it a foreign word and therefore not to be counted in your argument?
The most common vowel sound phonetically in English doesn't even have a character to represent it. It's known as a "schwa" and the phonetic symbol for it looks like a wrong way round 'e'. Look up in a good dictionary (with phonetic inscription) a word like "policeman". The 'o' and the 'a' are written phonetically like the wrong way round e (I can't write it here because I don't have the symbol on my computer). Say it to yourself as naturally as possible (if you're a native English speaker) and you will see that it is a different sound, we don't say 'o' or 'a' but a much weaker sound. When students of any nationality are learning English, this is one of their biggest problems and by dealing with this problem a teacher can go a
long way to getting students to stop sounding so 'foreign'.
The problem with rules in any language is that they were invented after the language was created, especially true of English, which is something of a mongrel language. This is why language is not a science and rules often have exceptions. Grammatical or spelling rules are more like guidelines in language. Remember that Shakespeare spelt his name in about 5 or 6 different ways and he was a school teacher. At his time, spelling was not something that had been laid down in concrete rules, that only happened with the advent of printing and dictionaries. And because the dictionaries in the US were compiled by different people than in the UK, there is disagreement about how to spell for example 'night' or 'nite'
It's also not true that in English every word has to have one of the 5 written vowels, also including 'y'. Is 'Mrs' a word for example? You'll probably say it's an abbreviation, but if that's right what is it an
abbreviation of? According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary it's a word, not an abbreviation. Are they right? Are we going to argue with them? Well actually we could, they have no more right than we do of laying down a rule about English spelling.
So who is right, you or your boyfriend? What a responsibility I have. I suggest you call it a draw, on the basis that noone knows the rules of English, including professors of linguistics and experts like that. Buy each other a drink instead.
By the way, you've given me an idea for the next page on the blog, so thanks for that.
All the best,
Julian

links;
words without vowels
words without a vowel

Thu Apr 14, 2005 5:02 am MST by julian | Email Article |

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Mon Jul 10, 2006 5:08 am MST by vivek

I have one...Crwth. It's a six-stringed instrument

Wed May 3, 2006 8:06 pm MST by roberto

If you try the word "psst" in the American Heritage dictionary, it is there. The Merriman-Webster dictionary does not show it however. There was a newspaper article a while back that reported a case where a grade school teacher offered his students each year $50 if they could find a word with no vowels. One young gentleman went home and with his father, seached yahoo for such a thing and it returned with "psst". The teacher was distraught since he didn't have the $50 and asked the student if he could pay him $5 per week. It made the newspaper but it was a couple of years ago. This is what the American Heritage dictionary said when I tried it. psst (pst) KEY INTERJECTION: Used to capture someone's attention inconspicuously. p.s. Hope this helps.

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Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:10 pm MST by rafael

I've done extensive research on this, and my conclusion was this: There are no words in the English Language that contain no vowels (including y) UNLESS that word is directly imported from another language. In this case the word is still English, but it was originaly from another Language, for example, "cwm". cwm is a welsh word that means valley, but it's been adobted into English now as well.

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y is a vowel but if you can com up with a word that doesn't have a,e,i,o,u and y then plz post it

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Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:02 pm MST by your stupid

Hi Claire and Julian I agree with Julian. I found words like crwth and cwm with in Welsh means valley. So I soooooo think ur boyfriend is wrong. No offense to him or anything. U are really from Australia! Cool! Can u be my pen pal? My email addy is amberisapalmgirl11@hotmail.com. Bye.

Tue May 10, 2005 6:10 pm MST by Amber

words without vowels?

words without vowels?

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