The Vowels Of American English Page 2
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15Vowels of American English
Example
Symbols
Example
Symbols
beat
/iy/
/i:/
boot
/uw/
/u:/
bit
/ɪ/
/i/
book
/ᴜ/
/u/
bait
/ey/
/eɪ/
boat
/ow/
/ou/
bet
/ɛ/
/e/
bought
/ɔ/
/ɔ:/
bat
/æ/
/æ/
box
/ɑ/
/a/
but
/ʌ/
/ə/
by
/ay/
/ai/ /aɪ/
sofa
/ə/
/ə/
cow
/aw/
/au/ /aᴜ/
her
/ɚ/
/ɝ/ /ər/ /ɜr/
boy
/oy/ /ɔy/
/ɔi/ /ɔɪ/
Describing vowels is trickier than describing consonants. The tongue is floating freely
around the mouth, not touching other parts of the vocal tract. This makes it harder to
describe exactly what’s happening in the mouth. When we describe the vowels of English,
we traditionally talk about:
Tongue position
•
Lip rounding
•
Tense and lax vowels
•
Simple vowels, glided vowels, and diphthongs
•
These categories are not as precise or reliable as those we use to describe consonants. Some
of them are not even as firmly based on physical reality as we like to think, and they can
vary a great deal among individual speakers. Still, the descriptions are useful in teaching,
and it’s important for teachers to know how vowels are traditionally described.
Tongue position
The way we move and shape our tongue plays a big part in giving each vowel its own
sound. When you pronounce a vowel, even a small change in the position of your tongue
can make a big difference in how the vowel sounds.
When we talk about tongue position, we mean: Where is the highest, tensest, or most active
part of the tongue? The way we describe this position is something like graphing a point in
math or finding a location on a map. We give two “coordinates” to describe where the point
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