In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in Phonology that determines Syllable weight (which in turn determines stress Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words A tone contour is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a Syllable Register (sociolinguisticsIn Linguistics, a register language also known as a pitch-register language is a language which combines tone and vowel In Phonetics, downstep is a phonemic or Phonetic downward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language In Phonetics, upstep is a phonemic or Phonetic upward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language In Phonetics, downdrift is the cumulative lowering of pitch over time due to interactions among tones called Downstep, in a Tonal language Tone terracing is a type of phonetic Downdrift, where the high or mid tones, but not the low tone shift downward in pitch ( downstep) after certain A floating tone is a Morpheme or element of a morpheme that contains no Consonants no Vowels but only tone. Tone sandhi is the change of tone that occurs in some languages when different tones come together in a word or phrase Tone letters are Written characters that represent the tones of a language especially Contour tones that were invented by Yuen Ren Chao and adopted In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Secondary stress is the weaker of two degrees of stress in the Pronunciation of a word the stronger degree of stress is called 'primary' Vowel reduction is the term in Phonetics that refers to various changes in the acoustic quality of Vowels which are related to changes in stress In Phonetics, length or quantity is a feature of sounds that are distinctively longer than other sounds In linguistics a chroneme is a basic theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. The International Phonetic Alphabet uses a Breve,, to indicate a speech sound (usually a Vowel) with less than normal duration In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech In Linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch whilst speaking which is not used to distinguish words In Linguistics, Speech synthesis, and Music, the pitch contour of a sound is a function or curve that tracks the perceived pitch of the sound In speech phonetic pitch reset occurs at the boundaries between Prosodic units Over the course of such units the median pitch of the voice declines from its In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός - rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement symmetry" is the variation of the length and accentuation of In verse, many meters use a foot as the basic unit in their description of the underlying rhythm of a poem Loudness is the quality of a Sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical strength (amplitude In Linguistics, a prosodic unit, often called an intonation unit or intonational phrase, is a segment of speech that occurs with a single Language timing is the rhythmic quality of a particular type of speech in particular how Syllables are distributed across time Vowel reduction is the term in Phonetics that refers to various changes in the acoustic quality of Vowels which are related to changes in stress Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields In Phonetics, length or quantity is a feature of sounds that are distinctively longer than other sounds In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English. In linguistics a chroneme is a basic theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in many other languages, for instance in Arabic, Czech, Hindi, Sanskrit, Fijian, Finnish, Japanese, Hawaiian, Hungarian, Classical Latin, Lombard, German, Dutch, Latvian, Old English, Samoan, Thai, and Vietnamese. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Fijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities The Hawaiian language (Hawaiian ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i) is an Austronesian language that takes its name from Hawai'i, the largest island in the tropical Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. Classical Latin is the form of the Latin language used by the ancient Romans in what is usually regarded as "classical" Latin literature. Lombard is a language spoken mainly in Northern Italy (most of Lombardy and some areas of neighbouring regions notably the eastern side of Piedmont The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname Latvian language (latviešu valoda is the official state language of Latvia. The Sāmoan or Samoan language is the traditional language of Samoa and American Samoa and is an official language &mdash alongside English Thai (th ภาษาไทย, transcription: phasa thai, transliteration:; pʰāːsǎːtʰāj is the national and Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam) It plays a phonetic role in the majority of English dialects, and is said to be phonemic in a few dialects, such as Australian English and New Zealand English. Australian English ( AuE, AusE, en-AU) is the form of the English language used in Australia. New Zealand English ( NZE, en-NZ) is the form of the English language used in New Zealand. It also plays a lesser phonetic role in Cantonese, which is exceptional among the spoken variants of Chinese. Spoken Chinese ( comprises many regional variants the largest of which are Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min.
Most languages do not distinguish vowel length, and for those that do, usually the only distinction is between short vowels and long vowels. There are very few languages that distinguish three vowel lengths, for instance Mixe. The Mixe languages are languages of the Mixean branch of the Mixe-Zoquean language family indigenous to southern Mexico. Some languages, such as Finnish, Estonian and Japanese, also have words where long vowels are immediately followed by more vowels, e. g. Japanese hōō "phoenix" or Estonian jäääär "ice edge".
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Vowel length and related features
Stress (linguistics) is often reinforced by allophonic vowel length, especially when it is lexical. In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word For example, French long vowels always occur on stressed syllables. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Finnish, a language with two phonemic lengths, indicates the stress by adding allophonic length. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside This gives four distinctive lengths and five physical lengths: short and long stressed vowels, short and long unstressed vowels, and a half-long vowel, which is a short vowel found in a syllable immediately preceded by a stressed short vowel, e. g. i-so.
Among the languages that have distinctive vowel length, there are some where it may only occur in stressed syllables, e. g. in the Alemannic German dialect. Alemannic German ( Alemannisch) is a group of Dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. In languages such as Czech, Finnish or Classical Latin, vowel length is distinctive in unstressed syllables as well. Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome.
In some languages, vowel length is sometimes better analyzed as a sequence of two identical vowels. In Baltic-Finnic languages, such as Finnish, the simplest example follows from consonant gradation: haka → haan. The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group Consonant gradation is a type of Consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades" In some cases, it is caused by a following chroneme, which is etymologically a consonant, e. In linguistics a chroneme is a basic theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant g. jää " ← Proto-Finno-Ugric *jäŋe. Proto-Finno-Ugric is the reconstructed Protolanguage for the Finno-Ugric languages, that is the ancestor of the Finnic languages, such as In noninitial syllables, it is ambiguous if long vowels are vowel clusters — poems written in the Kalevala meter often syllabicate between the vowels, and an (etymologically original) intervocalic -h- is seen in this and some modern dialects.
In Japanese, most long vowels are the results of the phonetic change of diphthongs; au and ou became ō, iu became yū, eu became yō, and now ei is becoming ē. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with The change occurred after the loss of intervocalic phoneme /h/. For example, modern kyōto (Kyoto) exhibits the following changes: kyauto > kyoːto. (IPA /kʲoːto / is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. Another example is shōnen (boy): seunen > syoːnen (shoːnen). There is no lengthening.
Phonemic vowel length
Many languages have phonemic long and short vowels: Japanese, Finnish, Hungarian, etc. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe.
Long vowels may or may not have own phonemes. In Latin and Hungarian, long vowels are separate phonemes from short vowels, thus doubling the number of vowel phonemes.
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| High | /i/ | /iː/ | /u/ | /uː/ | ||
| Mid | /e/ | /eː/ | /o/ | /oː/ | ||
| Low | /a/ | /aː/ | ||||
Japanese long vowels are analyzed as either two same vowels or a vowel + the pseudo-phoneme /H/, and the number of vowels is five. A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| High | /i/ | /ii/ or /iH/ | /u/ | /uu/ or /uH/ | ||
| Mid | /e/ | /ee/ or /eH/ | /o/ | /oo/ or /oH/ | ||
| Low | /a/ | /aa/ or /aH/ | ||||
Estonian has three distinctive lengths, but the third is suprasegmental, as it has developed from the allophonic variation caused by now-deleted grammatical markers. A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1 In Linguistics, prosody (from Greek προσωδία) is the Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech For example, half-long 'aa' in saada comes from the agglutination *saata+ka "send+(imperative)", and the overlong 'aa' in saada comes from *saa+ta "get+(infinitive)". One of the very few languages to have three lengths, independent of vowel quality or syllable structure, is Mixe. The Mixe languages are languages of the Mixean branch of the Mixe-Zoquean language family indigenous to southern Mexico. An example from Mixe is [poʃ] "guava", [poˑʃ] "spider", [poːʃ] "knot". Similar claims have been made for Yavapai and Wichita. Yavapai is an Upland Yuman language, spoken by Native Americans in western Arizona. Wichita is a moribund Caddoan language spoken in Oklahoma. Only one fluent speaker remains and hence it is almost certain that Wichita will soon become
Four-way distinctions have been claimed, but these are actually long-short distinctions on adjacent syllables. For example, in kiKamba, there is [ko. Kikamba is a Bantu language spoken by the Akamba people of Kenya. ko. na], [kóó. ma̋], [ko. óma̋], [nétónubáné. éetɛ̂] "hit", "dry", "bite", "we have chosen for everyone and are still choosing".
Long vowels in English
Vowel length, when applied to English, has several different related meanings.
Traditional non-phonetic "long" and "short" vowels
Traditionally, the vowels /ei iː ai oʊ juː/ (as in bait beet bite boat beauty) are said to be the "long" counterparts of the vowels /æ ɛ ɪ ɒ ʊ/ (as in bat bet bit bot but) which are said to be "short". This terminology reflects their pronunciation before the Great Vowel Shift, rather than their present-day pronunciations. The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the Pronunciation of the English language that took place in the south of England between 1200 and A linguistically more accurate description is that the former are diphthongs (except for /iː/), while the latter are monophthongs ("pure" vowels). In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with A monophthong ( Greek μονόφθογγος "monophthongos" = single note) is a "pure" Vowel sound one whose articulation at
Allophonic vowel length
In certain dialects of the modern English language, for instance General American and, to some extent, British Received Pronunciation, there is allophonic vowel length: vowel phonemes are realized as longer vowel allophones before voiced consonant phonemes in the coda of a syllable. General American is an accent of American English within American English General American and accents approximating it are contrasted with Southern American Received Pronunciation ( RP) is a form of Pronunciation of the English language (specifically British English) which has long been perceived as In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds For example, the vowel phoneme /æ/ in /ˈbæt/ ‘bat’ is realized as a short allophone [æ] in [ˈbæt], because the /t/ phoneme is unvoiced, while the same vowel /æ/ phoneme in /ˈbæd/ ‘bad’ is realized as a long allophone (which could be transcribed as [ˈbæːd]), because /d/ is voiced. (Incidentally, the final consonant allophones in these syllables also have different relative lengths; the [t] of bat is longer than the [d] of bad. )
Symbolic representation of the two allophonic rules:
| /æ/ | → | [æː] | | _ /+con +vcd/ |
| /ˈbæd/ | → | [ˈbæːd] | |
| /æ/ | → | [æ] | | _ /+con -vcd/ |
| /ˈbæt/ | → | [ˈbæt] |
In addition, the vowels of Received Pronunciation are commonly divided into short and long, as obvious from their transcription. An allophonic rule is a Phonological rule that says which Allophone realizes a Phoneme in a given phonemic environment The short vowels are /ɪ/ (as in kit), /ʊ/ (as in foot), /e/ (as in dress), /ʌ/ (as in strut), /æ/ (as in trap), /ɒ/ (as in lot), and /ə/ (as in the first syllable of ago and in the second of sofa). The long vowels are /iː/ (as in fleece), /uː/ (as in goose), /ɜː/ (as in nurse), /ɔː/ as in north and thought, and /ɑː/ (as in father and start). While a different degree of length is indeed present, there are also differences in the quality (lax vs tense) of these vowels, and the currently prevalent view tends to emphasise the latter rather than the former. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Phonology, tenseness is a particular Vowel or Consonant quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages including English
Contrastive vowel length
In Australian English, there is contrastive vowel length. Australian English is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians The following are minimal pairs of length for many speakers:
| [feɹi] ferry | vs | [feːɹi] fairy |
| [spæn] span past tense of spin | vs | [spæːn] as in wing span |
| [kæn] can meaning able to | vs | [kæːn] as in tin can |
| [bɪd] bid | vs | [bɪːd] beard |
Etymologies
The long vowel may often be traced to assimilation. Assimilation is a common Phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary In Australian English, the second element [ə] of a diphthong [eə] has assimilated to the preceding vowel, giving the pronunciation of bared as [beːd], creating a contrast with bed [bed]. Another etymology is the vocalization of a fricative such as the voiced velar fricative or voiced palatal fricative, e. The voiced velar fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in various spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiced palatal fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet g. Finnish illative case, or even an approximant, as the English 'r'. Illative case in the Finno-Ugric languages Illative (from Latin illatus "brought in" is in the Finnish language, Estonian language
Estonian, of Balto-Finnic languages, exhibits a rare phenomenon, where allophonic length variation becomes phonemic following the deletion of the suffixes causing the allophony. The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group Estonian already distinguishes two vowel lengths, but a third one has been introduced by this phenomenon. For example, the Balto-Finnic imperative marker *-k caused the preceding vowels to be articulated shorter, and following the deletion of the marker, the allophonic length became phonemic, as shown in the example below. Similarly, the Australian English phoneme /æː/ was created by the incomplete application of a rule extending /æ/ before certain voiced consonants, a phenomenon known as the bad-lad split. Trap-bath split The trap-bath split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in southern varieties of English English (including Received Pronunciation
Notations in the Latin alphabet
Diacritics
- Macron, (ā), used to indicate a long vowel in Maori, Latvian and many transcription schemes, including romanizations for Sanskrit and Arabic, the Hepburn romanization for Japanese, and Yale for Korean. A macron, from Greek el μακρόv ( makrón) meaning "long" is a Diacritic ¯ placed over or under a Vowel which was originally Latvian language (latviešu valoda is the official state language of Latvia. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities The Yale romanizations are four systems created during World War II for use by United States military personnel. This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system While not a feature in Latin proper, the macron is also used as a teaching aid in modern Latin textbooks. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome.
- Breves, (ă), are used to mark short vowels in several linguistic transcription systems, as well as in Vietnamese. Length The breve sign indicates a short vowel as opposed to the Macron ¯ which indicates long vowels in academic transcription Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam)
- Acute accent, (á), used to indicate a long vowel in Czech, Old Norse, Hungarian and Slovak. History An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels. Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian"
- Circumflex, (â), used for example in Welsh. Pitch The circumflex accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it occurred (subject to certain rules on the accented syllable Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic As with acute accents, a vowel with an accent is long, with other vowels being short. The circumflex is occasionally used as a surrogate for the macrons, particularly in the Kunrei-shiki romanization of Japanese. is a Romanization system ie a system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet.
- Ogonek, (ą), used in Lithuanian to indicate long vowels. The ogonek ( Polish for "little tail" the Diminutive of ogon) is a Diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Lithuanian ( lietuvių kalba) is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognised as one of the official languages of the European Union.
- Umlaut mark, (ä), used in Aymara to indicate long vowels. Diaeresis or trema See also Diaeresis History Historically the diaeresis mark or trema is far older than the umlaut mark Aymara ( Aymar aru) is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes.
Additional letters
- Vowel doubling, used consistently in Estonian, Finnish, Lombard and in closed syllables in Dutch. Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1 Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Lombard is a language spoken mainly in Northern Italy (most of Lombardy and some areas of neighbouring regions notably the eastern side of Piedmont Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname Example: Finnish tuuli /ˈtuːli/ 'wind' vs. tuli /ˈtuli/ 'fire'.
- Estonian also has a rare "overlong" vowel length, but does not distinguish this from the normal long vowel in writing; see the example below.
- Consonant doubling after short vowels is very common in Swedish and other Germanic languages, including English. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the The system is somewhat inconsistent, especially in loan-words, around consonant clusters and with word final nasal consonants. Examples:
Consistent use: byta /ˈbyːta/ 'to change' vs bytta /ˈbyta/ 'tub' and koma /ˈkoːma/ 'coma' vs komma /ˈkoma/ 'to come'
Inconsistent use: fält /ˈfɛlt/ 'a field' and kam /ˈkam/ 'a comb' (but the verb 'to comb' is kamma)
- Classical Milanese orthography uses consonant doubling in closed short syllables. Milanese ( milanes, milanées, meneghin, meneghìn) is the central variety of Western Lombard language spoken in the Eg. lenguagg 'language' and pubblegh 'public'. [1]
- ie is used to mark the long /iː/ sound in Dutch and in German. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. In German, this is due to the preservation and generalization of a historical ie spelling that originally represented the sound /iə̯/. In northern German, a following e letter lengthens other vowels as well, e. g. in the name Kues /kuːs/. Bernkastel-Kues (ˌbɛɐ̯nkastəlˈkuːs is a town over 700 years old located on the Middle Moselle river in the district of Bernkastel-Wittlich, in Rhineland-Palatinate
- A following h is frequently used in German and older Swedish spelling, e. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the g. German Zahn [tsaːn] 'tooth'.
- In Czech, the additional letter ů is used for the long U sound, where the character is known as a kroužek, e. Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the A ring Diacritic may appear above or below letters It may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in various contexts g. kůň "horse". (This actually developed from the ligature "uo", which signified the diphthong /uo/, which later shifted to /uː/. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with )
Other signs
- Colon (punctuation), commonly used in IPA phonetic transcription but no native writing systems. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic Vowel length can also be signified by a half-colon (a colon with only the top dot), meaning half-long, and a double colon, meaning twice as long as a regular vowel. This "colon" is actually two triangles facing each other in an hourglass shape instead of the usual two dots. Many shapes have metaphorical names, ie their names are Metaphors these Shapes are named after a most common object that has it A breve is used to mark a short vowel. Length The breve sign indicates a short vowel as opposed to the Macron ¯ which indicates long vowels in academic transcription
-
- Estonian has a three-way phonemic contrast:
- saada [saːda] "to get"
- saada [saˑda] "send!"
- sada [sada] "hundred"
- Estonian has a three-way phonemic contrast:
-
- Although not phonemic, the distinction can also be illustrated in certain dialects of English:
- bead [biːd]
- beat [biˑt]
- bit [bɪt]
- Although not phonemic, the distinction can also be illustrated in certain dialects of English:
- Interpunct, commonly used in non-IPA phonetic transcription, such as the Americanist system developed by linguists for transcribing the indigenous languages of the Americas. An interpunct ( ·) is a small dot used for Interword separation in ancient Latin script, being perhaps the first consistent visual representation of word boundaries Americanist phonetic notation (variously called American Phonetic Alphabet or APA is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and Euro-American Example: Americanist [tʰo·] = IPA [tʰoː].
- Some languages make no distinction in writing. This is particularly the case with ancient languages such as Latin and Old English. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Modern edited texts often use macrons with long vowels, however. Australian English does not distinguish the vowels /æ/ from /æː/ in spelling, with words like ‘span’ or ‘can’ having different pronunciations depending on meaning. Australian English ( AuE, AusE, en-AU) is the form of the English language used in Australia.
Notations in other writing systems
In non-Latin writing systems, a variety of mechanisms have also evolved.
- In abjads derived from the Aramaic alphabet, notably Arabic and Hebrew, long vowels are written with consonant letters (mostly approximant consonant letters), while short vowels are typically omitted entirely. The Aramaic alphabet is an Abjad, a Consonantal Alphabet, used for writing Aramaic. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Most of these scripts also have optional diacritics that can be used to mark short vowels when needed.
- In South-Asian abugidas, such as Devanagari or the Thai alphabet, there are different vowel signs for short and long vowels. An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which The Thai Alphabet (อักษรไทย àksŏn thai) is used to write the Thai language and other minority languages in Thailand
- In the Japanese hiragana syllabary, long vowels are usually indicated by adding a vowel character after. is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system, along with Katakana and Kanji; the Latin alphabet For vowels /aː/, /iː/, and /uː/, the corresponding independent vowel is added. Thus: あ (a), おかあさん, "okaasan", mother; い (i), にいがた "Niigata", city in northern Japan (usu. 新潟, in kanji); う (u), りゅう "ryuu" (usu. are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana 竜), dragon. The mid-vowels /eː/ and /oː/ may be written with え (e) (rare) (ねえさん (姉さん), neesan, "elder sister") and お (o) [おおきい (usu 大きい), ookii, big] , or with い (i) (めいれい (命令), "meirei", command/order) and う (u) (おうさま (王様), ousama, "king") depending on etymological, morphological, and historic grounds.
- Most long vowels in the katakana syllabary are written with a special bar symbol ー (vertical in vertical writing), called a chōon, as in メーカー mēkā "maker" instead of メカ meka "mecha". is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana, Kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. The, also known as,, or Katakana-Hiragana Prolonged Sound Mark by the Unicode Consortium is a Japanese symbol which indicates a chōon Word origin and usage The term "mecha" is derived from the Japanese abbreviation for the English word " mechanical " However, some long vowels are written with additional vowel characters, as with hiragana, with the distinction being orthographically significant.
- In the Korean Hangul alphabet, vowel length is not distinguished in normal writing. This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system Some dictionaries use the <ː> symbol, for example 무ː “Daikon radish”. (from Japanese daikon (大根 literally "large root" is a mild-flavored East Asian giant white Radish.
See also
References
In Phonetics, length or quantity is a feature of sounds that are distinctively longer than other sounds In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. A Acoustic phonetics Active articulator Affricate Airstream mechanism The Scottish Vowel Length Rule, also known as Aitken's Law after Professor ADapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic