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From: grass@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: seven vowels? - (nf)
Message-ID: <3246@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Oct-83 23:38:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3246
Posted: Fri Oct 14 23:38:28 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Oct-83 10:38:43 EDT
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#R:bronze:-82600:uiuccsb:10500006:000:678
uiuccsb!grass    Oct 14 15:40:00 1983

 I think that there is often confusion between what is written and what is
pronounced.  If looking just at spelling, it looks like English only has
a,e,i,o,u with maybe a couple of "semi-vowels", but if you consider 
pronunciation there are a good deal more than that.  Consider the sonds in
this list:
     bite  bit bet bat boat boot but bait beet   
There you have quite a bit more than 5 vowel sounds.  I'm not sure
that I have all of them here either.  

Note that these are all PHONEMIC as well (eg. enough to distinguish
between otherwise identical sound pairs in meaning).  There
are a good deal MORE ALLOPHONIC differencec (eg. that don't make
meaning differences).