English alphabet has 26 letters and these 26 letters represent 44 speech sounds which are phonemes in IPA. Like letter b has /b/ sound, letter k has /k/ sound, letter p has /p/ sound, letter c has /s/ sound /k/ sound and so on. Click here to read about letters and sounds. Wait a minute! You can scroll up and click later. First you read this post. Today’s post is about special letter ‘y’. Is it a vowel or consonant?
Special letter ‘Y’: a vowel or consonant?
We had been taught that we have 5 vowels a, e, i, o, u and 21 consonants in English. Sometimes letter ‘Y’ is also considered as a vowel. In Phonetics, the first thing to realise is that letters are not vowels or consonants. They represent sounds which may be vowels or consonants. So letters are just symbols on paper and not sounds. I already told you that there are 44 speech sounds. Out of 44 speech sounds there are 20 vowel (monophthongs and diphthongs) and 24 consonant sounds.
Should we consider letter ‘Y’ as a vowel? It’s quite clear that letters are neither vowels nor consonants but they represent speech sounds whether vowels or consonants. This means, it is quite unnecessary to impose consonant or vowel labels on letters as they are just letters not sounds.
Which sound does letter ‘y’ stand for?
Letter ‘y’ stands for /j/ sound (it’s a sound symbol for letter ‘Y’) which is a consonant sound as in Yak, Yellow, Yell, Yes. Here, letter ‘Y’ doesn’t stand for a vowel. Typically, letter ‘y’ represents a consonant when it starts off a word or syllable, as in yacht, layer, or beyond.
Sometimes letter ‘y’ represents vowel sounds as /ɪ/ ( in hymn) or /i:/ ( in carry) and, or in combination, it represents the diphthongs /aɪ/ ( in shy, cry).
It’s a consonant or vowel?
In general terms, a consonant is a speech sound formed by some kind of constriction or impeding of air flow through the vocal tract and a vowel is produced with mouth opened without any constriction of air flow. The letter ‘Y’ can stand for either of these types of sounds. In “yell,” Y is representing a consonant, and in “my” it is representing a vowel. In a way, sometimes it stands for a consonant like vowel sound therefore it is kept in the category of ‘semi vowel’. If we talk in terms of pronunciation, when we pronounce letter ‘y’, there is neither constriction of air flow nor mouth is completely open. Therefore, sometimes it has been considered as a semi vowel.
Letter a, e, i, o, u are vowel letters as they represent all 20 vowel sounds. No other letter represents /j/ sound for which the letter ‘y’ stands. It represents a unique consonant sound that’s why it is more often considered as a consonant sound and only sometimes as a semi vowel in English language.
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