Dear
friends, so far we have learnt about the complex structures of spelling and
pronunciation in English. English is known as a lingua franca, which means it
is deemed international link language as it connects people across the globe
irrespective of the national, cultural, and linguistic identities. English is
an ever-growing language, which has borrowed words from many languages.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary website, there are more than
6,00,000 words in English over a thousand years. As a matter of fact, it is
spoken by around 952 million people across the world.
We know that there
are 26 letters in English with a Roman alphabet. But, there are 44 sounds in
English as follows:
i. Vowel
= 20 (Monophthongs/Pure Vowels 12
+ Diphthongs 8)
ii. Consonants =
24
Total
= 44
Now, let us have a look
at vowel sounds and its phonetic transcriptions listed below:
Vowel sounds are
produced freely without any obstruction in the oral cavity. The vowels may be
short or long. The vowel sounds are unavoidable in a word in English. For
instance, in the words, “tea” /iː/ is a long vowel sound, “cup” /˄/ is a short
vowel sound.
Look at the phonetic
chart which highlights all the 44 sounds with their phonetic transcription,
which helps us pronounce the English words correctly.
Phonetic Chart
In the upcoming posts, let us explore more about the vowels and consonants sounds.
Author:
K.
Nandhakumar
Assistant
Professor of English
Sri
Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science (Autonomous)
Coimbatore-
641 020
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