Vowel Sound facts

While investigating facts about Vowel Sounds and Vowel Sounds In English, I found out little known, but curios details like:

The English language went through a period where the sound of long vowels changed dramatically, it is known as the Great Vowel Shift and it happened ca. 1350 to 1600.

how vowel sounds are produced?

The" is pronounced as "thee" when it comes before a vowel sound and as "thuh" otherwise

What vowel sound is used in the word scoff?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what vowel sound is in moon. Here are 22 of the best facts about Vowel Sounds Symbols And Examples and Vowel Sound Words Examples I managed to collect.

what vowel sound is oo?

1. Despite names like Hermes, Hades, Hera, and Herakles, Ancient Greek doesn't have a letter for 'h.' Rather, a word starting with a vowel has either rough breathing, to produce the 'h' sound, or smooth breathing. The 'h' sound is also aspirated in the letters theta, chi, phi, and rho.

2. Alphabetic signs in hieroglyphics were created to represent one sound each but because Egyptians did not represent vowels the actual sounds represented may never be known.

3. The Rotokas language of Papua New Guinea may have the smallest sound inventory of any language on Earth, distinguishing just 6 consonants and 5 vowels

4. The anatomy of the Neanderthal vocal tract would have made it difficult to make the sounds of some of our vowels, but they may still have had a unique language of their own. They also liked to paint.

5. The reason why we have silent "e" at the end of many words (such as "come") is that it represents a vowel sound that was formerly pronounced, but became silent in late Middle English or Early Modern English.

6. The tilde over letters started as a shorthand for the letter N by medieval Iberian scribes. Portuguese gained nasal vowels and started using it for those, while the Latin double-N evolved into a different sound in spanish, giving way to the letter Ñ.

7. Cats have been noted to respond better to high-pitched human voices, and prefer women’s voices to men’s. Cats also respond to names containing the long e-vowel, or “ee” sound. Incidentally, cats only vocalize meowing when communicating with people, and not with other cats.

8. English has at least 38 different ways to spell the vowel sound in "say". For example <eigh> (eight), <alf> (halfpenny) <au> (gauge) etc.

9. Using 'a' or 'an' is based on the sound of the word that follows, not necessarily whether it starts with a vowel.

10. A diphthong is a combination of two vowels that forms one syllable when spoken. The English language has 8-10 diphthong sounds.

Why teach long and short vowel sounds?

You can easily fact check why teach short vowel sounds by examining the linked well-known sources.

English Vowels are sounds pronounced with an open vocal tract, so that the tongue does not touch the lips, teeth, or roof of the mouth.

A diphthong (pronounced Dipf thong) which is a word meaning a double vowel sound like in pie ('i' sound), round ('ow' sound) etc. - source

The schwa sound can be written in English with any vowel. - source

Schwa is the most common vowel sound in English, so common in fact that sometimes it is not even represented by a letter in written words such as in "rhythm".

There was a language with only 11 distinct vowel sounds, and 84 consonant sounds. It went extinct in 1992, though recordings of the last native speaker remain. - source

When vowel sounds are repeated?

The rule for using the articles a/an is based on the sound of the first letter (if it sounds like a consonant or vowel), not the first letter itself.

How vowel sounds?

A Half rhyme or imperfect rhyme, sometimes called near-rhyme, lazy rhyme, or slant rhyme, is a type of rhyme formed by words with similar but not identical sounds. In most instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa.

'an' is not actually used for words starting with vowels, but for words that start with a vowel sound. This includes acronyms like FBI

Ə" has a name: Schwa. Its sound in English can be represented by every vowel, even y.

A new study shows that infants prefer to hear sounds from their peers (other babies) opposed to adult vocalizations of the same vowels.