Vowels

Tags

speech-processing

Sound segments produced without any obstruction in the configuration of the vocal tract. In english the vowels are AEIOU.

The formal definition is:

Sounds articulated by raising the front or the back of the tongue towards the
roof of the oral cavity or shaping the lips.

Vowel Quality

[see page 15, Many] languages distinguish between:

• Rounded/Unrounded vowels
• long/short vowels
• oral/nasalised vowels
• vowel glides (Monopthongs and Dipthongs)

The quality of a vowel can be indicated by:

• putting a dot in the [see page 16, vowel quadrilateral] when using IPA.
• relating it to a set of language independent Cardinal Vowels.

Vowel Instability

Vowels appear to [see page 16, carry] less information than consonants in most languages. You can omit the vowels from a sentence and they can still be generally understood.

Most accents are variations in the vowel quality.

because of this most variations on the same words over time have been movements of the vowels. This is also why a phonetic writing system could be a good idea. People can communicate despite differing accents.