Vowels

Even more trouble; very, very variable among different speakers

Many of our vowels will differ, which is good

English vowels per se are trouble: because of the Great Vowels Shift

After spelling had been reasonable established (according to Latin alphabet) all of the vowels changed pronunciation

Pronunciation based on spelling in English is rarely matched with other European languages or with the IPA

The names of the letters are also not universal: think of French “a, e, i”

Where these noises come from, relatively:

Front                    Central       Back

High 

Middle

Low

Draw a FACE on your chart

Brinton & Arnovick chart, faced

Millward’s Vowels

Front vowels are unrounded

Back are most rounded (in Modern English)

Schwa: “uh”

Diphthongs:

The real key here is TWO SOUNDS, blended together;

          a glide and a vowel (or vowel and a glide). 

          Do not be confused by spelling:

not all diphthongs are spelt in Modern English with two vowels.

Millward’s diphthongs

Stress / Stress Accent

          Fixed stress from Germanic

Variable from Latin and French

          Reduction of unstressed vowels to

                   / ə / or / ɪ / 

                             kilometer /k ɪ l ə m i d ə r/

Alphabet:

          Not only is it crude, it’s a ancient hand-me-down

                   Phonographic, alphabetic (not syllabic)

All the ALPHABETS derive from the same parent:

Alphabets, not all writing systems

(Chinese does not have an alphabet, nor does Japanese)

Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Cyrillic, Latin alphabet:

All developments from the same origin (Phoenician!) despite the fact that the languages are not necessarily related

Hebrew, Arabic, Phoenician are Semitic languages, non-Indo-European

their alphabets do not indicate vowels

Runic Alphabet

Modern English uses the Latin alphabet plus:

V / U                    I / J             W      Y                 Z