Question

Give a list of English vowels phonemes, both pure vowels and diphthongs, according to British received pronunciation. Write the phonetic symbol for each vowel and give an example of a word in which it occurs.

Answer 1

For assistance with IPA transcriptions of English for Wikipedia articles, see Help:IPA for English.See also: Phonological history of EnglishHistory and description ofEnglish pronunciationHistorical stagesOld EnglishMiddle EnglishModern EnglishGeneral developmentOverviewIn Old EnglishIn ScotsDevelopment of vowelsOverviewGreat Vowel ShiftHigh frontALow backHigh backDiphthongsPre-LPre-RDevelopment of consonantsSingle consonantsClustersVariable featuresRhoticityFlappingL-vocalizationT-glottalizationTHRWHRelated topicsHistory of EnglishSpellingvte

Like many other languages,English has wide variation inpronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical)phonological system.

Phonological analysis of English often concentrates on or uses, as a reference point, one or more of theprestige or standard accents, such as Received Pronunciation for England, General American for theUnited States, and General Australian for Australia. Nevertheless, many other dialects of English are spoken, which have developed independently from these standardized accents, particularly regional dialects. Information about these standardized accents functions only as a limited guide to all of English phonology, which one can later expand upon once one becomes more familiar with some of the many other dialects of English that are spoken.There are five vowels and twenty one vowel sounds in English. The short and long vowel sounds together make 12 monophthongs and sliding vowels (diphthongs) are nine in number.

The monophthongs are twelve in number and are -
1. / ɪ /  (short vowel sound of ɪ)             e.g. pit, bit, hit
2. / ɪ: / (long vowel sound of ɪ)              e.g. me, see, key 
3. / e / (short vowel sound of e )            e.g. egg, leg, beg
4. / æ / (long vowel sound of æ)            e.g. pat, cat, hat
5. / ɑ: / (long vowel sound of ɑ:)             e.g. car, jar, par
6. / ɒ /   (shortvowel sound of ɒ)             e.g. hot, pot, got
7. / ɔ: /  (long vowel sound of ɔ:)             e.g. all, doll, ball
8. / ʊ /  (short vowel sound of  ʊ)            e.g. hood, wood, should
9. / u: /  (long vowel sound of u:)             e.g. pool, cool, you 
10. / ʌ /  (short vowel sound of ʌ)            e.g. girl, pearl, ulcer
11. / ɜ: /  (long vowel sound of ɜ:)            e.g. fur, word, heard
12. / ə /  (short vowel sound of ə)            e.g. aloud, alone, gutter

Nine Diphthongs are : 
1. / eɪ /          e.g. name, date, bait
2. / əʊ /         e.g.  home, gone, moan 
3. / aɪ /          e.g. bye, my, sky
4. / ɑʊ /         e.g. now, how, brow
5. / ɔɪ /          e.g. boy, toy, joy
6. / ɪə /          e.g. here, dear, beer
7. / ɛə /          e.g. fair, dare, share
8. / ɔə /          e.g. board, hoard, pour
9. / ʊə /          e.g. your, pure, sure