VOWEL

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as an English ah! or oh!, 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!, 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.

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vowel

Noun

  1. A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable.
  2. A letter representing the sound of vowel; in English, the vowels are a, e, i, o and u, and sometimes y.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: vowel
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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