Talk:Vowel length

Traditional definitions are WRONG

Why is there nothing in this article stating that the traditional definitions people are taught in school are just plain WRONG. most of the time the teachers teaching it know nothing about linguistics, that should be in the article as well. Also why don't they teach the linguistic definition in grade school? Because I went through most of my life thinking these were long and short vowels until I got into linguistics and found out my idiot teachers had been lying to me for years. Thess issue should be addressed in the article.

English Phonics (/juː/ is a syllable, not a vowel)

I made the table of "Traditional English Phonics" but am concerned with some of the ways it has been changed. First is that /e/ and /eɪ/, and /o/ and /oʊ/ are allophones (at least in GenAm), the realization being based on stress. I'm OK with this change, however, due to the allophonic nature. What does bother me is changing /uˑ/ to /juː/ -- the [j] onglide is neither universal nor a vowel (thus not part of the vowel), and /juː/ certainly is not how I was taught this as a kid. More to the point, /juː/ (by itself) is a syllable (not a vowel), and the [j] is a part of the consonant cluster (even if not shown orthographically).

(Also, the table was not intended to highly silent e specifically, but I see no problem with that, either).

Does anyone else agree that "long u" is /uˑ/ not /juː/? --Jared (talk) 01:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Even more to the point, this is about how it was taught, and (as I remember), it was taught that /u/ was a vowel, it was not taught that /j/ is any part of a vowel. --Jared (talk) 01:08, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It is not unusual to consider /juː/ a diphthong. Many languages have diphthongs starting or ending in [w] or [j], often spelled as u and i or y, or not spelled explicitly. Also the allophonic nature of /juː/ and /uː/ points to the fact that the /j/ is part of the vowel, c.q. diphthong, not a separate syllable initial. −Woodstone (talk) 08:45, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Whether /ju:/ is phonologically a vowel, a diphthong, or a sequence of glide + vowel isn't even relevant to the table in question. In pedagogical "phonics", /ju:/ is treated as a vowel, specifically the "long u sound". The "long" versions of all the vowels are held to be the same as the name of the letter that represents them: "long A" is /eɪ/, same as the name of the letter A; "long E" is /i:/, same as the name of the letter E; and "long U" is /ju:/, same as the name of the letter U. As the cub/cube example shows, adding a "silent E" changes the "short U" (/ʌ/) into "long U" (/ju:/, not /u:/). —Angr 18:25, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

But the term "long u" is also used for the vowel in "suit" and "lute," and these aren't completely allophonic in English (though I can't think of a minimal pair, /lju:t/ would not be equated to word "lute," nor /ku:t/ for "cute"). The pedagogy I'm familiar with said a "long vowel" was followed immediately be another vowel, or one consonant and a silent e. Perhaps its taught differently in different places or schools, though -- I have no idea what was more common. --Jared (talk) 23:22, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in dialects that allow /j/ after /l/, /lju:t/ is the pronunciation of "lute", as distinct from /lu:t/ "loot". The loss of the /j/ in /ju:/ after different consonants in different dialects is entirely predictable. —Angr 06:07, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Persian anyone?

Someone should add a section to this article regarding the reconstructed vowel-quantity contrasts of Classical Persian, as well as the confusion over whether modern Iranian Persian has contrastive vowel-quantity. I'll do it myself if there's no one around, but I'd rather it be done by a real Persianist (as opposed to an Arabist such as myself who dabbles in Persian.) Szfski (talk) 23:56, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Do it, I'll check it. Alefbe (talk) 18:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)