|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7
stranger
|
OP
stranger
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7 |
I teach music and have challenged students to find another word that has no vowel (not even a "y") but yet is a syllable. The word I DO know that has that is "rhythm" with the "thm" being the syllable with no vowel. I tell them that onomotopoeias don't count.
Anyone have one? I knew if I asked here someone would tell me others.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
English cwm from the Welsh for 'valley'. In Welsh both y and w are vowels. Pronounced /ku:m/.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I would say that the suffix -ism is two syllables and, depending on how you divide it, the m or the sm is a syllable without a vowel. Also nth is a whole word without a vowel.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 956
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 956 |
Shhh. 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
I was thinking of written vowels, not actual vowels. Anything with a stop in it is right out, but as Olly demonstrates, fricatives (and nasals) can be articulated and sustained without recourse to vowels. The Mandarin word for four sz is an example of a word with a vowel. English sss, the sound a snake makes or as a show of disapproval, sh to shut somebody up. Also, English uses clicks, but not as words as some Khoisan languages do. Tsk, giddyup, and kiss are usually articulated as clicks.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 132
member
|
|
member
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 132 |
The Mandarin word for four sz is an example of a word with a vowel. Do you mean without a vowel? It's normally spelled sì, isn't it? It definitely contains a vowel sound, at least it sounds like a vowel to me. Some say Nuxálk has long strings of consonants, for instance here. I can't copy it because this board doesn't handle unicode well. Anyway, it looks like a string of consonants, but I think there'd be some phonetic vowels in there somewhere.
Last edited by goofy; 11/10/08 04:12 AM.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Do you mean without a vowel? It's normally spelled sì, isn't it? It definitely contains a vowel sound, at least it sounds like a vowel to me.
I just read up on it, and there does seem to be a vowel in it. I may have been misled by listening to Mandarin spoken by speakers of other kinds of Chinese. Yes, pinyin should've been si.
[Undid the missled verb.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 11/12/08 03:10 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 557
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 557 |
For those of us not up on our Mandarin, what's "four sz" and why is there a word for it?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
For those of us not up on our Mandarin, what's "four sz" and why is there a word for it?
I am sorry. I was in a big hurry yesterday and posted in haste. I should just delete it. The Chinese word for 'four' is si /szi/. I've never been able to hear the vowel, hearing only the /sz/ which can be sustained without a vowel. I didn't look up its proper Pinyin spelling and fell back on some pseudo romanization scheme. It occurs in the Chinese toponym Sichuan meaning literally 'four rivers'.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
Funny, I assumed that GwynneF was looking for words in English.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,317
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
688
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
