why a,i ,o,u,e are vovels
Answers
They’re not really vowels, of course. A vowel is a type of sound, and these are letters. They get called vowels because most vowels in English are represented using these letters, and these letters mostly represent vowels. But there are exceptions. The sound at the end of the word happy, for instance, is a vowel, but we don’t usually call y a vowel. Also, the letter e is often used for functions other than representing vowels. Consider what it does in the one-syllable word ice for instance.
A vowel is distinguished from a consonant by the lack of a significant obstruction impeding air-flow. For instance, a stop consonant is produced by stopping the airflow through the vocal tract completely (usually followed by a release), while a fricative involves holding the articulators close enough to cause turbulence in the airflow. For vowels, the articulators are held further apart. Because of the lack of turbulence or stop release, vowels rely more on voicing – vibration of the vocal chords in the larynx – to be audible (though unvoiced vowels do occur in some languages). This is where they get their name from. Vowel came into English from French, which inherited it from Latin [littera] vocalis, which means “vocal [letter]” (yes, the Romans confused letters and sounds too). Vocalis, of course, is the adjective for vox, meaning “voice”.