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English vowels can have two (or more, many more) different pronunciations:

  • A : /eɪ/, mate or /ɑː/, mat
  • E : /i:/, mete or /ɛ/, met
  • I : /aɪ/, mite or /I/, mitt
  • O : /oʊ/, mote or /ɒ/, moth
  • U : /juː/, mute or /ʌ/, mutt

I know that this is far from an exhaustive list of all the phonemes those five letters can represent, but I am interested in the relative frequencies between each of those pairs. I think that for most laypersons, and certainly for me before I started hanging out here, those are the sounds that come to mind when asked to list the sounds represented by the vowel letters.

So, of those phonemes, is the short (monophthong) form or the long (diphthong) form more common? By more common, I mean whether the letter I is more often used to represent /aɪ/ or /I/, not which of the two phonemes is more common but which of the two is I most often used for. Is there a general trend for all vowels or is it specific to certain ones?

I realize that this might not be answerable due to the vast variety of sounds these letters can represent in different dialects or even the same one, but I am hoping a conclusion can be drawn with respect to the specific phonemes listed.

Scott - Слава Україні
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terdon
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    Is this table what you're looking for? The most frequent vowel is the schwa. After that, you get bid, bed, bite, bud, bait, bead, boat, bad in that order. – Peter Shor Oct 24 '14 at 21:27
  • My take, just reading a few sentences and paying attention to the sounds, is that short vowel sounds are 2-3 times more common than long vowel sounds, in general. Of course, that's not enough difference in frequency to construct any sort of a "rule". The "open"/"closed" syllable rule gets you much closer. – Hot Licks Oct 24 '14 at 21:27
  • @PeterShor very nearly, thanks. However, I am primarily interested in how often a particular letter is used to represent a particular phoneme. For example, is E more often used to represent an /e/ or an /ɪə/? I am realizing that this is much more complex than I thought what with things like /i/ spelled ae but, if possible, I would like to stick to one sound per letter. – terdon Oct 25 '14 at 11:33
  • There are two questions. One: which vowel sound is more common? That's answered in the chart and the first comment. Two: What changes will appear in this phoneme distribution if the source list was filtered to just one letter per phoneme? – SrJoven Oct 31 '14 at 12:04
  • @SrJoven not quite. My question is not how common each phoneme is but how often a given letter is used to represent a given phoneme. For example, /ɪə/ can be written with an e as in me but also with an i as in ski so the relative frequencies given in the comment are not enough. I want to know whether letter X is used most often fro sound Y or for sounds Z. – terdon Oct 31 '14 at 13:32
  • In which dialect? You can't sensibly talk about pronunciation in English without specifying a dialect. – T.E.D. Oct 31 '14 at 15:05
  • @T.E.D. ah, yes, that's a very good point. I'm looking for the "standard dialect" but of course there's no such thing. The reason behind this question is that I'm wondering whether the vowel names (from the alphabet song) are the most common phonemes represented by these vowels. I know the names are left over from the great vowel shift but was curious to know whether today, they are also the commonest sound represented by each vowel letter. With that in mind, I am hoping that the same, or more or less the same, pattern will be found in all dialects. – terdon Oct 31 '14 at 15:32
  • By "the alphabet song", you are referring to the one from Sesame Street? That would imply the USA TV accent (or American Midlands as a stand-in). Its probably possible to get an answer for that, but you have to accept that it might be wrong for most British English speakers. As a French person, BE might be more relevant to you. – T.E.D. Oct 31 '14 at 16:21
  • @T.E.D. I was taught the alphabet song in an American kindergarten in Greece, no idea which dialect. I grew up speaking my father's dialect (who was born in Philadelphia in the 30ies), then spent 4 years in the UK and have been speaking English primarily to non-natives for the last 15 years. My dialect is a kind of mid-atlantic (as in, smack in the middle of the Atlantic) bastardized thing. Still, whatever the dialect (AFAIK at least), the "name" of the vowels is also one of the phonemes they represent. Is that form the commonest phoneme represented by that letter? – terdon Oct 31 '14 at 16:27
  • How is rain versus reign counted for in your question? What about lien vs lean vs green vs cede? Is it said or tread or bed? Super or Soup or Goop or Suit? But not biscuit? Nor soot. Put, but not putt. Laughter, but slaughter. – SrJoven Nov 01 '14 at 04:58
  • @SrJoven Well, that's precisely the kind of thing that makes it complicated. Reign and rain are skipped since their vowels are neither the "short" nor the "long" versions of themselves. Lean is a perfect "long" e as are green and cede but lien is skipped since its i is neither of the ones I am looking for. Same goes for tread and said but bed is fine. Basically, I care only for those words where a vowel is used in either its 'short' or 'long' version and not for the myriad of other sounds each can represent. – terdon Nov 01 '14 at 13:44
  • Related. – tchrist Dec 11 '22 at 17:47

1 Answers1

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There are several problems with your question. the first is that you have not correctly identified the short and long vowels. I have tried to do this for you below. As you have mentioned non linguists, I have not used phonetic symbols. Please note that the vowels and diphthongs I have listed are those of standard southern British English.

Monophthongs

bad - short; bard - long;

bed - short

bid - short; bead - long;

bod - short; bawd - long

bud - short; booed - long

put - short

about - shot; bird - long

Diphthongs

bayed; bide; buoyed; crowd; abode; beard; bared; boor.

tunny
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    Whoa, that doesn't come close to resembling the short/long list I learned in school (in US), dipthongs aside. Since when does a long "I" take on the 'eeee' sound? Maybe in Spanish but what about English - shouldn't that be "I" as in "hide"? – Kristina Lopez Oct 24 '14 at 20:58
  • Thanks but I seem to have spectacularly failed to make myself understood. I am not talking about dipthongs at all, I am referring to what I call short and long vowels but perhaps those are the wrong terms. What do you call the i in I am versus the one in in for example? They are both spelled with the same letter. Also, please don't hold back for my ignorance, the fact that I don't know the IPA well enough to use does not mean an answer should not use it. – terdon Oct 24 '14 at 20:58
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    The 'I' in 'I am' is a diphthong, a glide from one vowel (close to the first vowel of 'father') to another (close to the vowel of 'bid'). The vowel of 'in' is a short vowel. I think you are confusing the letters A E I O U, sometimes unhelpfully called vowels, with the vowel sounds of English, of which there are about twelve generally recognised as phonemes in most varieties of English. – tunny Oct 24 '14 at 21:02
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    @tunny Ah, yes, indeed it is. OK, so I am talking about dipthongs. Fine, which of those two is more common in English? The i of I or the one of in? Of all the words spelled with an i, which of these two is most common? Your answer, is just a list of mono and dipthong vowel sounds. That's great but it does not seem to be relevant here. – terdon Oct 24 '14 at 21:06
  • This doesn't answer the OP's question but it does offer a very simple explanation for long and short vowel sounds...basically, the vowel's long sound is also how the letter is named: A, E, I, O, U, then it gives examples of the short sounds. http://www.macmillanmh.com/ccssreading/imagineit/grade2/ccslh_g2_fs_3_1a_l1.html – Kristina Lopez Oct 24 '14 at 21:10
  • According to Cruttenden (2001), the vowel of 'in' is the second most common vowel in colloquial RP. It is over four times as common as the diphthong of 'I'. – tunny Oct 24 '14 at 21:14
  • @KristinaLopez precisely, that's what I am curious about. I had a long discussion the other day about the names of these letters and how they are remnants of the great vowel shift. That's why I was wondering whether the "name sound" is more common than the shorter one. – terdon Oct 24 '14 at 21:15
  • @tunny great, why don't you add that to your answer? Can you also give me some information on the rest of them? If you do, please provide a link to the cited paper (or book as the case may be) and clarify whether it is most common in terms of how often it is used in everyday speech or in terms of how many words in the language include it. – terdon Oct 24 '14 at 21:16
  • This gives you an idea of the relative frequencies of vowel sound: https://notendur.hi.is/peturk/KENNSLA/02/TOP/vowelfreq.html – tunny Oct 24 '14 at 21:21
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    @terdon The alphabet-song letters are all diphthongs: ej, ij, aj, ow, ju — or juw. – tchrist Oct 24 '14 at 21:25
  • E, /i:/ is not a diphthong in standard BrE. – tunny Oct 24 '14 at 21:28
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    @tunny: some phoneticians argue that it's currently becoming one. – Peter Shor Oct 24 '14 at 21:39
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    I have edited my question and (I hope) made it clearer. Could you have another look? I am basically wondering which sound a given letter is most often used for, not which phoneme is most common in the language. – terdon Oct 25 '14 at 11:34