Vowels

 

Vowels

Introduction:

During the articulation of vowel sounds, the lung air escapes through the mouth without any friction. This is because during the articulation of vowels, there is no obstruction in the mouth. There are twenty distinctive vowel sounds made up of twelve pure vowels or monophthongs and eight diphthongs.

 

Definition:

“One of the human speech sounds that you make by letting your breath flow out without closing any part of your mouth or throat”

Vowels are therefore articulated with a stricture of open approximation. That is to say, the active articulation is raised in the direction of the passive articulator.

Active articulators:

Tongue – Front of the tongue

               Back of the tongue

                 Centre of the tongue

Passive articulators:

Palate – Hard (front of the tongue)

            Soft (back of the tongue)

                   Centre (Centre of the tongue)

For example,

Bead – ‘ea’ air escapes through mouth without friction

Bad – ‘a’ air escapes through mouth without friction

Booed – ‘oo’ air escapes through mouth without friction

Thus, ‘ea’, ‘a’, and ‘oo’ all are vowels. During the articulation one can realize that all are vowels but are having different sounds because the positions of tongue are different.

“Each of these vowels has a distinct ‘quality’ and this is because of the different positions taken by tongue during different vowel articulation”

 

Vowels can be described in three criteria:

1. Part of the tongue raised

(Front – Central – Back)

2. The height to which it is raised

(Close – Half-close – Half-open – Open)

3. The position of the lips

(Unrounded – Rounded)

 

1. Part of the tongue raised

Front vowels:

“Front vowels are those during the articulation of which the front of the tongue is raised in the direction of the hard palate”

For example – (1) Bee, (2) Bid, (3) Bed, (4) Bad

It should be taken in consideration that the space between the front of the tongue and the hard palate should be sufficient for the air to escape without any friction.

Back vowels:

“Back vowels are those, during the articulation of which the tongue is raised in the direction of the soft palate in such a way that there is sufficient wide gap between them for the air to escape without friction”

For example – (1) Cart, (2) Cat, (3) Caught, (4) Push, (5) Pool

Central vowels:

“Central vowels are those during the articulation of which the tongue is raised in the direction of the place where hard palate and soft palate meet.

Such vowel sounds are produced by raising the centre of the tongue. Those are called central vowels.

For example – (1) Cup, (2) Heard

Thus vowels can be classified into front, back and central vowels.

                   

2. The height to which it is raised

There are two criteria for the description and classification of vowels:

1. The part of the tongue is raised

2. The height to which it is raised

 

Close vowels: Tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth and produce a sound.

                          

Open vowels: Tongue is far away from the roof of the mouth during the articulation.

 

3. The position of the lips

According to the position of lips vowels are divided into two categories – 1. Rounded 2. Unrounded

1. Rounded: Rounded vowels are those during the articulation of which the lips are rounded.

For example – cot, caught, put, fool.

2. Unrounded: Unrounded vowels are those during the articulation of which the lips are spread or neutral

For example – Seat, Sit, Set, sat

 

4. Cardinal vowels

There is a vowel area in the oral cavity. According to the position of tongue and lips it can be classified.

1. Front close unrounded - [i]

2. Front half-close unrounded - [e]

3. Front half-open unrounded - [Ʃ]

4. Front open unrounded - [a]

5. Back open unrounded - [ɑ]

6. Back half-open rounded - [ɔ]

7. Back half-close rounded - [O]

8. Back close rounded - [u]

Diphthongs:

“The vowel at the end does not sound the same as the vowel at the beginning”

By this we can define diphthongs as,

“Vowels of changing quality are called ‘diphthongs’”

This can be described as ‘Vowel glide’ the tongue first takes the position required for the articulation of certain vowel and then moves  (or glide) towards the position required for the articulation of another vowel.

For example: Buy – Boy – Cow – Poor

Monophthongs: Vowels which do not change their quality are called Monophthongs or pure vowels.

Conclusion: After the classification of vowels it should be remembered that all these are ‘Theoretical Possibilities” During the articulation of a vowel in any language, the tongue may actually lie anywhere between close and open positions