The English Speech Sounds

The sounds of English, or the sounds of any language, are of two major classes: vowels and consonants.

The English Vowel Sounds

There are three major types of vowels in English: short vowels, long vowels, and diphthongs.

The English Short Vowels

English has seven short vowels. As their name implies, short vowels are pronounced briefly, without being prolonged. In front of each short vowel below are a few words to show how the sound is pronounced. Note that the symbol for each sound is enclosed within two slanting lines: / /. This indicates that it is not a letter but a phonemic symbol representing a sound as it is pronounced. In many cases, however, the symbol for the sound is the same as the letter for it. The last of the short vowels below is also known as the schwa. It is a weak English vowel and represents the pronunciation of most English vowels in unstressed syllables, as you will discover when we discuss syllables and stress in this chapter. The letter or letters that constitute the alphabetical representation of each short vowel (and the subsequent speech sounds to be discussed) shall be underlined in each example. Say each of the following words aloud, taking care to use the correct vowel sound.

1. /ɪ/ as in fish, bit, minutes, pretty, socket, postage, village, women, build
2. /e/ as in bet, let, ate, read (past tense and past participle forms), many, says, said, bury, friend, leopard, jeopardy
3. /æ/ as in cat, fat, match, bad, dam, glad, had, nag, sad, plait
4. /ɒ/ as in top, yacht, wasp, watch, wander, sausage, what, wander, cough, knowledge
5. /ʊ/ as in book, took, look, put, full, good, foot, cushion, butcher, could, would, should
6. /ʌ/ as in but, love, hut, cut, tough, touch, rough, much, oven, son, wonder, blood, flood
7. /ə/ as in after, about, a boy, teacher, pastor, labour, pepper, bursar, nature

The English Long Vowels

As their general name indicates, each of the long vowels is prolonged when pronounced. Many English words are differentiated, to a large extent, by the difference between the short and long duration of the pronunciation of their vowel sounds. For example, the difference between the English words ‘full’ /fʊl/ and ‘fool’ /fuːl/ is mainly that the vowel in the first word is short, while the vowel in the second one is long. The length sign ‘:’ after a vowel indicates that it is long. It is, therefore, known as the length symbol. Below are the five English long vowel sounds, each with some sample words.

1. /iː/ as in see, bee, leaf, key, tea, quay, teach, lead, receipt, police, concrete, people
2. /ɑː/ as in are, hard, march, pass, last, part, cart, fast, laugh, aunt, clerk, heart
3. /ɔː/ as in law, court, ford, warm, taught, tore, door, bought, mourn, dawn, call, soar
4. /uː/ as in too, food, shoot, fool, loom, loose, lose, shoe, move, through, suit, blue
5. /ɜː/ as in bird, firm, word, fern, curse, purse, verse, were, journey, verb, colonel

The English Diphthongs

A diphthong is a vowel but is made up of two elements pronounced one after the other. It is a vowel in whose production there is a glide from the tongue position for one vowel to the tongue position for another vowel. It is important to note that a diphthong is only one vowel, though it has two elements. The time spent in pronouncing a diphthong is about the same as the time spent in pronouncing a long vowel. The only difference is that a diphthong begins as one short vowel and ends as another, with the first part sounding much longer and stronger than the second part, as exemplified in /aɪ/, /aʊ/, and /ɔɪ/. Diphthong /aɪ/, for instance, is about three quarters /a/ in its production, and as the glide to /ɪ/ occurs in the last quarter, the loudness of the sound decreases. The /ɪ/ part is, therefore, shorter and not so loud. There are eight clear diphthongs in English. They are listed below with sample words for each of them.

1. /aɪ/ as in buy, try, high, side, might, height, fight, write, dye, sight, sky, eye
2. /eɪ/ as in eight, day, slate, case, late, plate, cake, make, grey, weight, reign, straight
3. /ɔɪ/ as in boy, toy, boil, point, foil, soil, oil, coy, ploy, buoy
4. /aʊ/ as in cow, loud, sound, bow, foul, plough, shout, found, bout, tout, drought
5. /əʊ/ as in no, go, coat, wrote, moat, poach, boat, gold, bow, toe, so, though, oh!, soul
6. /ɪə/ as in near, pierce, dear, fear, here, beard, real, weary, cheer, tier, hero, serious, zero
7. /eə/ as in pair, care, dare, fare, fair, mare, share, chair, wary, various, there, their, scarce, where
8. /ʊə/ as in poor, lure, during, sure, cure, tour, moor, curious, truer, brewer

The English Consonant Sounds

A consonant is a sound in whose production there is a significant obstruction to the air coming out from the lungs. Compare this to a vowel, in whose production there is no such obstruction to the airstream. Pronounce /b/ and you will observe that the lower and upper lips are brought together to stop the airstream completely. That sound is a consonant because of the obstruction to the egressive (outcoming) airstream during its pronunciation.

The twenty-four consonant sounds of English are normally categorized into six sub-groups: six plosives, nine fricatives, two affricates, three nasals, one lateral, and three approximants. These sounds are mainly described along three parameters: the position of the glottis or opening between the vocal folds, place of articulation, and manner of articulation. The vocal folds are normally wide open in producing most voiceless consonants. Their opening is narrowed in the production of the voiceless glottal fricative /h/, which is like a whispered vowel. The passage of air through the vocal folds whose brims are touching, or nearly touching, each other normally results in vibration, which makes the sounds thus produced voiced. The speech organ that constitutes obstruction to the lung air is the place of articulation, while the manner of articulation is based on the kind of airstream release (sudden, gradual, etc.) involved in the production of a consonant sound. For the nasal sounds, it is the passage through which the lung air is released (nasal cavity) that is used, instead of the manner of articulation, in naming them.

Plosives

• /p/ – voiceless bilabial plosive (e.g., paper, tapper, pot, play, price, ape)
• /b/ – voiced bilabial plosive (e.g., baby, bubble, bee, bright, blue, ebb)
• /t/ – voiceless alveolar plosive (e.g., tricked, attain, debt, tea, little)
• /d/ – voiced alveolar plosive (e.g., landed, daddy, do, dress, dark, add)
• /k/ – voiceless velar plosive (e.g., cap, chemist, quiet, account, accent, basket, packet, acquire)
• /g/ – voiced velar plosive (e.g., guest, begging, go, get, great, gasp)

Fricatives

• /f/ – voiceless labio-dental fricative (e.g., film, phone, offer, rough, off)
• /v/ – voiced labio-dental fricative (e.g., van, lover, move, of)
• /θ/ – voiceless dental fricative (e.g., thick, cloth, worthless)
• /ð/ – voiced dental fricative (e.g., this, clothes, father)
• /s/ – voiceless alveolar fricative (e.g., sit, science, cell, ass, course, loose, accept)
• /z/ – voiced alveolar fricative (e.g., zebra, rise, cause, lose, scissors)
• /ʃ/ – voiceless palato-alveolar fricative (e.g., shoe, pressure, mention, suspicion, conscience, schedule, ocean, machine)
• /ʒ/ – voiced palato-alveolar fricative (e.g., treasure, seizure, vision, prestige)
• /h/ – voiceless glottal fricative (e.g., hat, behind, alcohol, who, he, hear, house)

Affricates

• /tʃ/ – voiceless palato-alveolar affricate (e.g., cheap, watch, nature, perch, chew)
• /dʒ/ – voiced palato-alveolar affricate (e.g., jeep, giant, bridge, soldier, gigantic)

Nasals

• /m/ – bilabial nasal (e.g., man, plumber, remember, mummy, solemn)
• /n/ – alveolar nasal (e.g., note, knee, gnash, sinner, pneumonia)
• /ŋ/ – velar nasal (e.g., thing, hanging, pink, thanks, anger)

Lateral

voiced alveolar lateral (e.g., look, call, help, plan, late, lie, milk, feel, ill, table)

Approximants

• /r/ – voiced postalveolar approximant (e.g., road, rhino, lorry, wreck)
• /j/ – voiced palatal approximant (e.g., yes, pupil /ˈpjuːpl/, Europe /ˈjuːrəp/, union /ˈjuːnjən/)
• /w/ – voiced bilabial approximant (e.g., wet, what, quick, languish)

Exercises

1. Indicate the consonant in the initial position in each of the following words:

• write
• Phone
• gear
• vice
• then
• thought
• white
• join
• year

1. Indicate the vowel sound in each of the following words:

• vase
• boys
• tight
• cares
• late
• pass
• lean
• pierce
• pit

Also Read

A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE ON THE ENGLISH WORD/VOCABULARY

A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE ABOUT AGREEMENT BETWEEN SUBJECT AND VERB

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