Is y a vowel?

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hamish225

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Topic # 113304 13-Jan-2013 00:31

in primary school, year 1 i remember being told that the vowels are 'A, E, I, O, U and sometimes y'

however several people have argued that they've never heard of this before, even in the face of irrefutable proof;

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/is-the-letter-y-a-vowel-or-a-consonant
and
http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/g01.html

can someone reassure me, that i'm not crazy? :P

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Reply # 743939 13-Jan-2013 00:46

You're not crazy.
I definitely remember being told in school that y is a vowel.

eracode

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Reply # 743946 13-Jan-2013 03:55

dontpanic42: You're not crazy.
I definitely remember being told in school that y is a vowel.

Me too - but 'sometimes a vowel' as OP says.

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naggyman

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Reply # 743952 13-Jan-2013 07:58

From: http://www.abcfastphonics.com/vowel-letters.html

"Five of the 26 alphabet letters are vowels: A, E, I, O, and U. The letter Y is sometimes considered a sixth vowel because it can sound like other vowels."

I don't remember being taught that the letter 'Y' was a vowel. I am 15 so I have been through the primary education system somewhat recently.

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jonherries

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Reply # 743954 13-Jan-2013 08:05

You could consider the rule that all english words have a vowel.

In that case with the word "crypt", y acts as a a vowel.

Jon

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Reply # 743964 13-Jan-2013 08:57

I agree with jonherries in that it can act as a vowel (and sound like a vowel) when no other vowels are present.

e.g. dryly, hymn, rhythm where the "y" sounds like an "i" so acts as a vowel though strictly speaking it is not.

Other examples are here.

Stu

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Reply # 743997 13-Jan-2013 10:30

They're still teaching it. 12 year old learned it about four years ago she thinks.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

freitasm

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Reply # 744002 13-Jan-2013 11:04

Not sure about teaching... Reading through the subject in other sites you can see that vowels are A, E, I, O, U. In a writing representation sometimes Y is used.

From Wikipedia (which I am not fond of using as reference, but there you go):

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as an English ah! [ɑː] or oh! [oʊ], pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! [ʃː], where there is a constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent open but non-syllabic sound is called a semivowel.

There is a conflict between the phonetic definition of "vowel" (a sound produced with no constriction in the vocal tract) and the phonological definition (a sound that forms the peak of a syllable). The approximants [j] and [w] illustrate this conflict: both are produced without much of a constriction in the vocal tract (so phonetically they seem to be vowel-like), but they occur on the edge of syllables, such as at the beginning of the English words "yet" and "wet" (which suggests that phonologically they are consonants). The American linguist Kenneth Pike (1943) suggested the terms "vocoid" for a phonetic vowel and "vowel" for a phonological vowel, so using this terminology, [j] and [w] are classified as vocoids but not vowels. However, Maddieson and Emmory (1985) demonstrated from a range of languages that semivowels are produced with a narrower constriction of the vocal tract than vowels, and so may be considered consonants on that basis.

The phonetic values vary considerably by language, and some languages use I and Y for the consonant [j], e.g., initial I in Romanian and initial Y in English. In the original Latin alphabet, there was no written distinction between V and U, and the letter represented the approximant [w] and the vowels [u] and [ʊ]. In Modern Welsh, the letter W represents these same sounds. Similarly, in Creek, the letter V stands for [ə]. There is not necessarily a direct one-to-one correspondence between the vowel sounds of a language and the vowel letters. Many languages that use a form of the Latin alphabet have more vowel sounds than can be represented by the standard set of five vowel letters. In English spelling, the five letters A E I O and U can represent a variety of vowel sounds, while the letter Y frequently represents vowels (as in e.g., "gym", "happy", or the diphthongs in "cry", "thyme"); W is used in representing some diphthongs (as in "cow") and to represent a monophthong in the borrowed words "cwm" (nearly always spelled combe, coomb, or comb in English) and "crwth" (sometimes cruth).

It seems there's a difference in speech and representation of that. If you go with the proposed "all words must have a vowel" then "w" would be a vowel as well - but we see it's only a graphical representation of a vowel sound, not the letter in itself.

I am old and my native language is a romance language so A, E, I, O, U are the vowels. As they show in the same Wikipedia article, other languages also include Ä, Ö, Ü, Å, Æ, and Ø. in the list.

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alasta

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Reply # 744005 13-Jan-2013 11:10

eracode:
dontpanic42: You're not crazy.
I definitely remember being told in school that y is a vowel.

Me too - but 'sometimes a vowel' as OP says.

This is also exactly what I was taught when I was at school back in the 80s.

nate

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Reply # 744014 13-Jan-2013 11:39

freitasm: From Wikipedia (which I am not fond of using as reference, but there you go):

Should ban you for using Wikipedia as a reference.

freitasm

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Reply # 744016 13-Jan-2013 11:42

Only using it when a reference is available though ;)

Although I know it's possible to post something on Wikipedia, then get some mainstream media to post about it, then use that as a reference on Wikipedia, propelling false stuff up. Yes, it happens all the time, but mainly marketing stuff - doubt something like this happens on "vowels" definition.

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gehenna

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Reply # 744017 13-Jan-2013 11:48

I was never taught this, but thank you to the OP for starting an argument between me and my fiancee

LittleGold

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Reply # 744020 13-Jan-2013 11:53

gehenna: I was never taught this, but thank you to the OP for starting an argument between me and my fiancee

No argument. Just yet another sad indictment of your sub-par education.
:)

Gilco2

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Reply # 744045 13-Jan-2013 12:57

yep in the 60's we were also taught a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y.

showing my age now

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hamish225

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Reply # 744058 13-Jan-2013 13:30

gehenna: I was never taught this, but thank you to the OP for starting an argument between me and my fiancee

hahahaha i was arguing about it with my partner too, decided that wasn't a good idea and stopped :P

SCM

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Reply # 744059 13-Jan-2013 13:32

Gilco2: yep in the 60's we were also taught a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y.

showing my age now

Same but in the 70's

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