17: Vowel Gymnastics (Patreon)

Say, “aaaaaahhhh…..” Now try going smoothly from one  vowel to another, without pausing: “aaaaaaaeeeeeeeiiiiiii”. Feel how  your tongue moves in relation to the back of the roof of your mouth as  you move from one vowel to the next. When you say “ahhhh” like at the  dentist, your tongue is low and far back and your mouth is all the way  open. If you say “cheeeeese” like in a photo, your tongue is higher up  and further forward, and your mouth is more closed: it’s a lot harder  for the dentist to see your molars.

In this episode, your hosts  Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch explain how the position of our  tongue when we make vowels can be described in the shape of a trapezoid:  it can go up and down, forward towards the teeth and backwards towards  the throat, and there’s a bit more space for movement higher up towards  the roof of your mouth.

Vowels don’t just exist in a trapezoid,  they move around inside it: sometimes they squish up against their  neighbours, sometimes they expand into less-occupied corners of the  trapezoid for more elbow room. These vowel gymnastics explain so many  things: why is the first letter in the alphabet named “ay” in English,  but “ah” in most other languages that use the Roman alphabet? Why is “e”  in “coffee” pronounced one way and “cafe” another, when they’re clearly  related? Why is English spelling so difficult? What’s the difference  between a California accent and a Kiwi accent?

To see this episode's shownotes, including how to run your own wug test and lots of fun wug creations, visit lingthusiasm.com/post/17092004422…l-gymnastics-say