How many of you think y isn’t a vowel?

You are correct.

You are correct that the y in “why” is a vowel, but NOT because of some supposed rule that ‘every word must have a vowel’.

That “rule” may pretty well describe the REALITY in English — that is, it may be that every English word does, in fact, include a vowel, or more accurately perhaps, ‘vowel-letter’. But even that is not indisputable, since there is a small set of words –and they ARE real words, found in the dictionary– used mainly to indicate sounds, that have no vowel-letters. Consider sh, psst, brr, grr, hmm.

And there are other languages which have vowel-less words.

But the problem is this — it’s not just that some apparently never learned the “and sometimes y” part of the “list of vowels”– it is that they do not understand what a vowel actually IS.

The confusion stems from the mistaken idea that each letter IS either a vowel or consonant (and can’t be both). In fact, “vowel” and “consonant” is more about the type of SOUND the letters are used to indicate.

There isn’t always a hard and fast dividing line between the two, but basically a vowel sound is one in which there is no significant blocking of the airflow. (Compare this with consonant sound that temporarily either STOP the sound [and so are called “stops”], such as p,b,t,d,k,g, or those that partially block the flow – such as f,v,th,s,sh [‘fricatives’].)

______________________

Now since almost all of our letters ALWAYS function to mark only one or the other, it is convenient to say “b” is a consonant” and “a is a vowel”.

BUT there are a couple of cases of letters that SOMETIMES indicate a vowel sound, sometimes a consonant sound. (All of this, of course leaves out “silent letters” — which ORIGINALLY marked a sound that was later lost, while the historical spelling continued.)

The main one is Y.

Here even the “a,e,i,o, u and ‘SOMETIMES’ y” rule is a little misleading. The truth is, in English we much more often use “y” to mark a vowel than to mark a consonant! It works like this —

a) Y at the BEGINNING of a syllable marks a consonant sound

b) Y elsewhere (in the middle or at the end of a syllable) marks a vowel sound. Historically it used to be used for a distinctive sound (as it still does in German, for instance); now it basically marks “i-type” sounds. You can use this to show how its’ working as a vowel, e.g., by looking at pairs in which the y at the end marks exactly the same sound as an i or ie not at the end, e.g., sky/skies, happy/happier; or spelling variations (new and old), such as “rime”/”rhyme”.

By the way, note that y may also combine with other vowels (this is called a diphthong) — as in “may” (ay here is same sound as ai in ‘maid’), dey (ey same as ei in reign), coy (oy same as oi in “coin”).

The other letter that in English sometimes marks a vowel, sometimes a consonant is W. It works similarly to Y, though it has an added wrinkle.

a) W at the beginning of a syllable marks a consonant – way, wily

b) W later in a syllable is used to indicate a vowel sound, specifically a u-type vowel sound — BUT in English** this now only happens when the W is combined with (coming after) another vowel sound.

Again, you can compare similar words in which the letter u marks the same sound (esp. when it is NOT at the end of a syllable or root). Compare: law/laud, few/feud, prow/proud.

**Welsh still uses the stand-alone W as a vowel, e.g. in “cwm” (pronounced “coom”).

Y is not a vowel. There are only five vowels in the English language, a, e, i, o, u. Whoever told you all words must have a vowel is mistaken. There are numerous examples of words without vowels, “gypsy” being a good example.

I don’t think Y can be categorised as a vowel. It is true that all words must have a vowel, but that does not mean they should have a vowel in the spelling they should contain a vowel when they are transcribed or phonetically spoken. The word why – when transcribed phonetically becomes- /w-ai/ where /w/ is a consonant phoneme and /ai/ is a diphthong. so logically speaking the only vowels that are there are – a, ei, o, and u

I hope that clears your doubt

it has to be a vowel because standard english language says that every word must have a vowel in it…so words like my or by or fly all the y’s have to be vowels because no other letter is

Y is a vowel… and if anything I think you proved it is one, like in the word why. Or fly. Or fry. Or syzygy. Even in other words in which it isn’t the only vowel, it can act as a vowel. It is a vowel in dye….

Y sometimes acts as a vowel but it works mostly like a consonant instead of a vowel so in the end it’s just considered a consonant.

Y is NOT a vowel. It is used to take the place of “I” in situations forbidden by English language rules.

English words do not end in the letter “I”, and that is an instance where “Y” takes its place.

There may be exceptions, but then again, the English language is besieged by exceptions 😉

I ymagine those sylli Cyndi’s and Lynda’s tend to call yt a vowel.

My kindergarten teacher

said It was

A,E,I,O, U and sometimes Y.

But thanks.

Now I have back up for when I say

Y is too sometimes a Vowel.

That’s not the only exception.

Fly, sly, cry, my, wry, dry, ply….

Yes, it’s sometimes considered a vowel.