Why is Y sometimes a vowel?

The Week ^ | 1/18/15 | Arika Okrent

[DallasBiff]

A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. You might have learned it as a chant, a song, or a simple declaration, but this is how you learned the vowels of English. You may have wondered, why is Y so unsure of itself? Can't we just decide what it is? Why is Y a "sometimes" vowel?

Because writing is not the same thing as speech. While we casually refer to letters, which are written symbols, as vowels or consonants, the concepts of vowel and consonant properly belong to the domain of speech. In general terms, a consonant is a speech sound formed by some kind of constriction or impeding of air flow through the vocal tract, and a vowel lets the air flow freely through. The letter Y can stand for either of these types of sounds. In "yes," Y is representing a consonant, and in "gym" it is representing a vowel.

[vikingd00d]

>>Y is a consonant until does the duty of a vowel in words like: cry, dry, fly, my, try, wyrd, and some others.

And sometimes it’s a digraph as in ‘Ye Olde Pub’.

[left that other site]

:-)

[irishjuggler]

The Romans called “Y” the “Greek I.” But for them, “I” was also both vowel and consonant as there was no “J”... with latter coming later to differentiate the vowel/consonant uses. Same thing happened with U & V which were also the same letter... and are still perplexing (slightly) modern observers of ancient and pseudo ancient inscriptions referring to “MARCVS AVRELIVS” et al.

[fishtank]

Thorn
Is “ye”

https://www.dictionary.com/e/letters-alphabet/

[Apparatchik]

It’s a mystery.

[rx]

Every syllable has either a vowel or a sound that acts as the locus of a syllable.

Y, which is often a glide, can become the locus of syllable, as can several other sounds that are more often consonants. Those would be: laterals (r, l) or nasals (m, n, ng) (e.g., rhythm, nation, and some lax pronunciations of closing -ing, as in ‘talkin on the phone’.)

W, a glide that’s often similar in function to y, can also become syllabified in extreme cases, such as when one affectedly makes ‘cow’ have two syllables.

Some pretend that syllabic r or l (e.g., father or gutteral) are preceded by a schwa, but that view obfuscates what’s really going on, IMHO.

My linguistics degree is from the University of Illinois.

[RightField]

As is ‘crwth,’ another Welsh word, I believe.

[Songcraft]

Y not?

---

(Sometimes, Y identifies as a this, and sometimes Y identifies as a that, and...)

[P.O.E.]

Place that vertically over a triple word score space and you’re golden

[mabarker1]

Tar

Tyre

Tire

Tie-ra

Ty-ra

Yodel

Yodly-Do-Da-in

Yar

And don’t get Me started on the Brits with the creating new “words”.

Honder

Tayoter

Daytoner

Americer

[glorgau]

Sometimes a vowel, not always a chromosome.

[Chode]

lol

[Ezekiel]

Push some buttons. Gotta live a little!

Really, what timing. It all started with a simple Y, a simple Jew:

Exodus 3
3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

It really depends how you reed things..

While we casually refer to letters, which are written symbols, as vowels or consonants, the concepts of vowel and consonant properly belong to the domain of speech. In general terms, a consonant is a speech sound formed by some kind of constriction or impeding of air flow through the vocal tract, and a vowel lets the air flow freely through. The letter Y can stand for either of these types of sounds.

Reed instruments produce sound by focusing air into a mouthpiece which then causes a reed, or reeds, to vibrate. Similarly to flutes, reed pipes are also further divided into two types: single reed and double reed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodwind_instrument#Reed_instruments

Egyptian
Glyph origin
Representing two reed panicles, as a reduplication of (𓇋, phonogram for j).

Symbol

𓇌 (y)
Uniliteral phonogram for y.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%93%87%8C

some kind of constriction:

Egypt: Mitsrayim [מִצְרַיִם], "double seige, confinement"

In "yes," Y is representing a consonant, and in "gym" it is representing a vowel.

The name EGYPT evolved from the hieroglyphics for the "house of the ka of Ptah"

The "ka" being the life force of Ptah (Hands up!):

Ptah is an Egyptian creator god who conceived the world and brought it into being through the creative power of speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptah

In Hebrew, the name Ptah is spelled as פתח, the same as a doorway, opening; entrance; opportunity

Pharaoh finally got sick of Moses and showed him the door.

"There's the door!"

Because back to the word EGYPT, there's the one letter of the bunch that does not get along with the others. It simply does not rhyme.

E-G-*Y*-P-T

Then for "some odd reason", the hieroglyphic ideogram representation of Ptah's ka (life force) is visually similar to a Y, and also placed in the center of the heiroglyphics for "EGYPT".

It's also a visual representation for the etymology of the name Yehuda, "praise", which is rooted in the action of the hands being cast into the air. (Start with the name and click back in the root words.)

Altogether, the messaging strongly suggests that Egypt's lights went out with the Exodus. Pretty much the simple meaning. Nobody around who was able to ask Y.

EGPT must have suffered some sort of speech impediment that it was suddenly unable to overcome. 😖

🤷

[Myrddin]

Welsh uses a e i o u w y as vowels. Each one of them has a variant with a caret (^) that modifies the sound. Gaelic uses a e i o u and variants with a grave accent (`) to indicate a lengthening of the sound. German uses a e i o u with variants with the umlaut (double dot) over the vowel to change the sound and usually the meaning of the word.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Yeah. You’d figure that, for all their tribute and gold, the Roman’s would have around and re-issued all of their statues and engraving when “U” replaced “V” in the language.

Careless oversite. Just because the Huns, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals and Mongols came invading .. .. ..

[Myrddin]

Turns out there’s a perfectly good scrabble word “cwm” (pronounced “koom”)

cwm is the Welsh word for "valley" as part of a place name. The leading "aber" indicates the mouth of a river. Abertawe, Aberystwyth. Upstream from Aberystwyth along the river Ystwyth (Afon Ystwyth) is a small valley, Cwmystwyth with a few homes. My friends Meredydd Evans and his with Phyllis Kinney lived there. I last visited in 1999.

[threefinger]

The entire article is nothing but circular logic.

[HIDEK6]

Ever since I learned that rule, I’ve been confused by it.

No longer am I confused.

[P.O.E.]

Always wanted to visit Wales. On my bucket list for sure.

[Secret Agent Man]

X is always a chromosome

Can’t help it