the.com/vowel
The open mouth's MVP, the sound that escapes when nothing gets in its way.
means A speech sound made with an open vocal tract so the breath flows freely (in English, typically a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y), forming the core of a syllable.
from From Latin vocalis, 'vocal, sounding,' from vox, 'voice' — literally 'the sounding letter.' It reached English through Old French vouel before settling into 'vowel,' and vox itself is a deep relative of words like 'voice' and 'vocation.'
airflowMade with zero blockage in the vocal tract
hawaiian flexSome words run five vowels in a row
sometimes yThe alphabet's most famous part-timer
ancient gapEarly Hebrew and Arabic wrote almost none
singing fuelHeld notes ride on vowels, not consonants