Okay, Why isn't the letter Q a vowel?

Originally posted by SMR
Interesting indeed!
I never even knew of the 'old' alphabet.
Since this is somewhat talk of vowels,is there ANY word that does NOT have a vowel in it?Try as I might,I could never find one.

I can't think of any in English. There is a person here in New Mexico whose last name is Smrt. His name is on a plaque in the Los Lunas courthouse annex. I exclaimed "Does this man really have no vowels in his last name and everyone looked at me like I was strange. It's pronounced Smurt. If it was my name, I'd pronounce it Smart.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by SMR
Interesting indeed!
I never even knew of the 'old' alphabet.
Since this is somewhat talk of vowels,is there ANY word that does NOT have a vowel in it?Try as I might,I could never find one.

I can't think of any in English. There is a person here in New Mexico whose last name is Smrt. His name is on a plaque in the Los Lunas courthouse annex. I exclaimed "Does this man really have no vowels in his last name and everyone looked at me like I was strange. It's pronounced Smurt. If it was my name, I'd pronounce it Smart.

Maybe he is Czech. There is a Czech motocycle rider of the 250cc class whose name is Smrz.

I've found a site that says that probably the worlds’ most difficult tong twister is "Strc prst skrz krk", meaning "Stick your finger down your neck" in Czech and Slovak.

if you dont count Y, then "Why" doesnt have a vowel ^_^

Originally posted by Toelint
Hahaha...

Yes, there IS a reason for asking this question. Please refer to the alphabet as written below.

A BCD

E FGH

I JKL

O MNP

Q RST

U VWX

Y Z






[edit on 12-9-2004 by Toelint]

A bcd
E fgh
I jkl
M nop
Q rst
U vwx
Y z


Here is the correct ABC's.

[edit on 18-9-2004 by SpittinCobra]

Originally posted by SMR
Interesting indeed!
I never even knew of the 'old' alphabet.
Since this is somewhat talk of vowels,is there ANY word that does NOT have a vowel in it?Try as I might,I could never find one.

It really depends on if you're talking about the alphabet we use in English, or if you're talking phonetically.

Ok, gotta explain a little bit of the jargon there, I see. A "phoneme" is a...unit of sound is the best short description I guess. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that differentiates a word. These can change from language to language. Probably the best known example of this (in America) is the much mocked tendency for native Japanese speakers to confuse /l/ and /r/ noises in English words. This is because, in the Japanese language, the two noises aren't significant, saying a /l/ instead of /r/ won't change the meaning of the word (whereas in English it would change the meaning).

When spelling a word using phonemes, you use the "/" at the beginning and end to note that. Normally the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is used as a way of standardizing things. I don't think ATS will display that font properly, but that's probably a good thing as it tends to be a bit confusing until you're used to it

So where am I going with all of this BS? Just here: In English it is technically possible to have a word spelled without using vowels. However, it is not possible to have a word spelled phonetically without using vowel sounds. A word spelled sprtz in English, for example, would be spelled /spUrtz/ or /spƏrtz/ depending on whether the vowel sound is stressed or unstressed.

mxyzptlk!




No vowels there, but I dunno... are we counting 5th dimensional proper names?

Originally posted by Toelint
Hahaha...

Yes, there IS a reason for asking this question. Please refer to the alphabet as written below.

A BCD

E FGH

I JKL

O MNP

Q RST

U VWX

Y Z


Believe it or not, this is a VERY OLD version of the alphabet. Have you noticed that every vowel falls into the first column? More amazing is that the first column is made up EXCLUSIVELY of vowels...except for the letter Q!

It just seems to me that this IS how the alphabet should be written, and if so, then we should consider Q a vowel. Maybe there's a conspiracy here too??

[edit on 12-9-2004 by Toelint]

If we used this version of the alphabet then Y would also have to be included? Yeah, yeah I know some people on this thread have said it is sometimes counted as a vowel.. SOMETIMES? It either is or isnt, and as far as the English language goes the vowels are A, E, I, O, U exclusively. Don't you people watch countdown???

If there's ONE thing I've learned about patterns, it's that there's ALWAYS a Mathimatical application. What if we combine this "new" old alphabet with a Base 4 counting system, to come up with a new form of Numerology?

Gee...maybe there's a new religion here! (Or not!)

Originally posted by SpittinCobra

Originally posted by Toelint
Hahaha...

Yes, there IS a reason for asking this question. Please refer to the alphabet as written below.

A BCD

E FGH

I JKL

O MNP

Q RST

U VWX

Y Z






[edit on 12-9-2004 by Toelint]

A bcd
E fgh
I jkl
M nop
Q rst
U vwx
Y z


Here is the correct ABC's.

[edit on 18-9-2004 by SpittinCobra]

Cobra, keep in mind, even the Latins (Whose alphabet we now use) added and deleted and switched letters around to suit their purposes at the time.

J K V and W are relatively new additions.

Holy #.

Doesn't anyone here remember the site's motto, 'Deny Ignorance'?

This guy walks up and says "Yeah, this is the alphabet but different.. it's, uh, um.. Yeah, it's a really old alphabet, so it's a different arrangement. Now that I've completely proven and established this new order of the alphabet that absolutely no one (not even Miriam) has ever seen, I should base opinions and ideas upon it."

I mean holy #ing hell.

How gullible can you guys be?

Let's see some proof that O was just mysteriously flipped back a bit.

Aside from that, view the present alphabet:

A BCD
E FGH
I JKL
M NOP
Q RST
U VWX
Y Z

If you were to switch the O and the M, as is the alleged 'old' alphabet, then why not switch another set.. say, Q and S:

A BCD
E FGH
I JKL
O MNP
S QRT
U VWX
Y Z

Now you've got something that fits the established requisites for vowels:

One of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked and is not constricted enough to cause audible friction.

And to the banned guy, who I know can't reply, but I still can't help saying it: You're a retard if you didn't have "A-E-I-O-U & SOMETIMES Y" drilled into your head as a child, that's English.

Originally posted by Viendin
One of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked and is not constricted enough to cause audible friction.

Actually the sibilant sound is caused by audible friction. To use the technical jargon, /s/ is an unvoiced alveolar fricative. Unvoiced means that your vocal chords aren't vibrating (like they would be in /z/), alveolar refers to the part of the mouth where the tongue is constricting the airflow (the alveolar ridge is that ridge of tissue behind your teeth, just before the hard palate at the top of your mouth). And "fricative" describes the type of sound, it's not an explosive exhalation (like in /p/, called a stop), or a nasal (like in /n/), it's a vibration of the air flowing through.

For a good site on Phonology go to alpha.furman.edu.... You'll still have to deal with some jargon, but it does a decent job of turning that jargon into layman's terms as well.

Sorry folks, this is the best response I got from the OED:

Thank you for your e-mail of 15 September.

I am sorry that we can make no comment on
your theories about the alphabet. They
don't really have any bearing on the
lexicographic work we do here.

I hope you continue to enjoy using our
dictionaries; we will be glad to respond
to any comments you have on their content.


*sheesh* How "English" can you get?? Okay, I'm convinced that Q shouldn't be a vowel. Okay? Ya satisfied??

On the other hand...the letter R makes a GREAT vowel!

I've come to a conclusion...a vowel is a letter you can sound out, with as little lip and tongue movement as possible. The R qualifies!

P.S.

Come on, Viendin...have some fun!

[edit on 30-9-2004 by Toelint]

The OED has a point. Their job is listing words with their proper spelling, and their definition. The nature of the alphabet really doesn't come into play.

If you really want to wrap your head around some letter, ask why is W called "double u"? Of course, in French isn't "double v", which makes sense, but what possible use is "vv"?

W was invented by Roman schollars who were studying the Germanic tribes. Latin didn't have a w sound, so they approximated it by saying "uu".

So why W?

Originally posted by Ut
The OED has a point. Their job is listing words with their proper spelling, and their definition. The nature of the alphabet really doesn't come into play.

If you really want to wrap your head around some letter, ask why is W called "double u"? Of course, in French isn't "double v", which makes sense, but what possible use is "vv"?

W was invented by Roman schollars who were studying the Germanic tribes. Latin didn't have a w sound, so they approximated it by saying "uu".

So why W?

W cares?

I never studied Latin, but I think I remember earing that they did not have some other letters like "J" or something like that.

I do not remember any French words with "W", so I can't say for sure, but maybe in all their words with "W" they really read it V V.

its not a vowwel because people didn't want four vowels ina row in words like quiet... i guess