Most of these observations are important for completeness but do not influence understandability.
The Roving Schwa
If the syllable is unstressed, it really is normally harmless to use a schwa. Most phrases starting with a- as a individual syllable, which include the phrase “a” by itself, use a schwa and many suffixes routinely use a schwa, these types of as: -a, -ain, -ance, -ant, -ence, -ent, -eon, -ful, -ic, -ion, -ive, -less, -ment, -ness, -ous, -ship (note that these are all treated as small (closed) syllables even if ending with silent E). A small record of common schwa phrases, with the unstressed vowel capitalized, involves: abbOt, ballAd, bAnanA, biAs, biscUIt, burEAUcrat, circUIt, circUs, cOllegIAte, cOllide, colOny, Link, Well-known, Trend, gUErilla, handsOme, hansOm, homAge, lunchEOn, marItime, mountAIn, mullEIn, Manifest, ocEAn, Health practitioner, porpOIse, Acquire, Purpose, rabbIt, Rapid, sabbAth, salAd, silEnt, tickEt, Legitimate, verandAH, and so on.
The Many Faces of U
As presently stated, the most prevalent appears for the vowels are the classical, the brief, and the lengthy and we acquired about silent E. We ought to also keep in intellect some additional rules pertaining to U.
Silent U appears in most words and phrases made up of “gue” or “gui”, and in phrases like biscuit, circuit, assurance, guard, intriguant, lacquer, languor, liquor, plaque, pursuivant, quay, and vanguard. The silent U’s perform is to show that G has the difficult audio of “g”, not “dzh” (or that C has the difficult sound of “k”, not “s”). An exception is “argue”, pronounced as it seems (“argyoo”).
U would make the sound of the semivowel “w” in a lot of terms, most usually those people containing “gua” and “qu”, as nicely as terms like cuisine, suite, and tuille.
U also suggests its identify (“yoo”) in a number of phrases, such as those starting with u- as a one syllable, those people with -ual, -ule, -uous (“yoo-uhss”), -ure, or -ute as a root, and words and phrases like the adhering to: accuse, argue, botulism, bureau, corpulent, cube, cucumber (“kyoo-kuhmberr”), cuke, cupola, formula, gas, fury, hubris, hue, enormous, human, humility, humor, mural, muse, audio, pubic, puke, pule, puny, pupa, simulate, spatula, virtue, etcetera.
European Vowels
A lot of much more vowels than those pointed out right here are detailed in the Global Phonetic Alphabet. Two extra pronunciations just about every for OE and UE are frequent in French and German, and do seem in loanwords brought into English from these languages (they are also represented by O and U with umlauts). In common, these vowels can be ignored in studying English if a person is not already fluent in them.
Syllabic Consonants
The consonant sounds “l”, “m”, “n”, and “ng” all can be preceded by a clipped schwa, which provides them the syllabic top quality of vowels. Normally the schwa seems as some vowel. Most words ending in -AL are pronounced “uhl” with this shorter schwa. Most words ending in a consonant followed by -LE are pronounced “uhl” as well the commonest ecosystem is -Equipped and -IBLE (“uhbuhl”, “ihbuhl”). In these conditions the E is silent and the L normally takes on an unwritten clipped schwa vowel. Sure names, and terms like dirndl, also incorporate syllabic L.
Ultimate unstressed syllables ending in a vowel followed by the “m” or “n” appears also have this schwa good quality prevalence with “ng” is constrained to pretty brief speech. Words ending with SM acquire on a schwa and are pronounced “-zuhm”: chasm, prism, sarcasm, spasm, and all terms ending in -ism. As a remaining trivia item, the 3-syllable phrase massacre, modifying E to ING in the participle, gains an added syllable but not an additional vowel, producing a special syllabic R: massacring is “maassuhkerrihng”.
Unusual Phrases
Other a lot less usually vowel combos are commonly witnessed unconnected that is, they are compound terms where two consecutive letters in fact belong to separate phrase pieces and need to be addressed separately and not blended. Be on the inform for unconnected vowels amongst the a lot more prevalent pairs as perfectly. Scarce combinations that generate distinctive combos when linked are:
AA is ordinarily “ah” (not “aa”), as in aargh, baa, bazaar, laager, salaam.
AO is typically “ah-oo”, as in cacao, ciao, miaow, prao, tao.
EH is typically “ey”, as in almeh, feh, heh, mikveh, tempeh.
UH is ordinarily “yoo”, as in buhl, buhr, fuhrer, muhly, uhlan.
UO is ordinarily “ah”, as in buoy, fluor, languor, quattuordecillion, sonobuoy.
EAU is normally “oh”, as in beaux, bureau, chateaux, eau, tableau.
IEU is ordinarily “yoo”, as in adieu, lieu, lieutenant, milieu, priedieu.
(IH, II, IU, IW, IY, and UW are all commonly unconnected.)
A person-of-a-variety phrases incorporate wonderful toughness to one’s vocabulary. The next words and phrases are unusual exceptions to the ordinary seems of the letter combinations. They are fantastic for searching up in dictionaries and showing off one’s vocabulary and pronunciation skills:
AA as “ey” in quaalude
AE as “ee” in aeon
AE as “eh” in aesthetic
AO as “ey” in gaol
AO as “oh” in pharaoh
AU as “ey” in gauge
AU as “oh” in chauvinist
AY as “aee” in aye, bayou, papaya, and so forth.
EA as “ey” in break, great, steak, etc.
EA as “ih” in actually
EAU as “yoo” in natural beauty
EE as “ey” in matinee
EI as “aee” in peak, heist
EO as “eh” in jeopardy, leopard
EO as “oh” in yeoman
EU as “yoo” in feud
EW as “yoo” in few, hew, mew
EY as “aee” in geyser
IA as “aee” in diamond
IA as “ih” in carriage, relationship
IE as “ey” in lingerie
IE as “ih” in sieve
IH as “ee” in ihram, mihrab, shantih
II as “ee” in aalii, shiitake
OE as “ee” in phoebe
OI as “ee” in chamois
OI as “waee” in choir
OI as “wah” in patois
OO as “oh” in brooch
OO as “uh” in blood, flood
OU as “oh” in boulder, mould, soul, and many others.
OU as “w” in bivouac, ouabain
OUW as “ah-oo” in vrouw
OY as “aee” in coyote
UH as “uh” in huh
UI as “uh” in sluice
UU as “oo” in muumuu, vacuum
UY as “ee” in cliquy, guyot, plaguy
