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| | Vowel (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06) |
 | | However, some languages allow sounds that wouldn't normally be classified as vowels to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the sound of m in the English word prism, or the sound of r in the Czech word vrba (meaning "willow"). |
 | | English has all three types: the vowel sound in hit is a monophthong [ɪ], the vowel sound in boy is in most dialects a diphthong [ɔɪ], and the vowel sounds of way [weɪ], flower (BrE [aʊə] AmE [aʊɚ]) form a triphthong, although the particular qualities vary by dialect. |
 | | Vowels are especially important to the structures of words in languages that have very few consonants (like Polynesian languages such as Maori and Hawaiian), and in languages whose inventory of vowels is larger than its inventory of consonants (like Sedang, a relative of Vietnamese, which contrasts 55 different vowel qualities). |
| www.worldhistory.com /wiki/V/Vowel.htm (2009 words) |
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