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The vowel systems of most languages can be represented by vowel diagrams. Usually, there is a pattern of even distribution of marks on the chart, a phenomenon that is known as vowel dispersion. For most languages, the vowel system is triangular. Only 10% of languages, including English, have a vowel diagram that is quadrilateral.
This chart provides audio examples for phonetic vowel symbols. The symbols shown include those in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and added material. The chart is based on the official IPA vowel chart. [1] The International Phonetic Alphabet is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet.
Vowels pronounced with the tongue lowered are at the bottom, and vowels pronounced with the tongue raised are at the top. For example, [ɑ] (the first vowel in father) is at the bottom because the tongue is lowered in this position. [i] (the vowel in "meet") is at the top because the sound is said with the tongue raised to the roof of the mouth.
The following is the chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet, a standardized system of phonetic symbols devised and maintained by the International Phonetic Association. It is not a complete list of all possible speech sounds in the world's languages, only those about which stand-alone articles exist in this encyclopedia.
There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one phonetic and the other phonological.. In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English "ah" / ɑː / or "oh" / oʊ /, produced with an open vocal tract; it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth), frictionless and continuant. [4]
The number of vowels is subject to greater variation; in the system presented on this page there are 20–25 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American and 19–21 in Australian English. The pronunciation keys used in dictionaries generally contain a slightly greater number of symbols than this, to take account of ...
In the vowels chart, a separate phonetic value is given for each major dialect, alongside the words used to name their corresponding lexical sets. The diaphonemes for the lexical sets given here are based on RP and General American; they are not sufficient to express all of the distinctions found in other dialects, such as Australian English.
All vowels are unrounded except for the four back rounded vowels: /u, o, ɔ, uə̯/. In the South, the high vowels /i, ɨ, u/ are all diphthongized in open syllables: [ɪi̯, ɯ̽ɯ̯, ʊu̯], Ba Vì [baː˧ vɪi̯˩] (listen ⓘ). [14] /ə̆/ and /ă/ are pronounced shorter than the other vowels. These short vowels only occur in closed syllables.