A consonant is a speech sound in which the air is at least partly blocked or any letter which represents this.[1] Consonants may come singly (by themselves) or in clusters (two or more together), but must be connected to a vowel to form a syllable. All the letters of the English alphabet are both consonants and vowels.
Notice that the consonant (C) and vowel (V) notation does not match the letters of English spelling in a one-to-one relationship (e.g. 'th' is one sound), but rather individual sounds.
Words with single consonants include:
- Go (CV), which has one consonant and one vowel in that order
- On (VC), which has one vowel and one consonant in that order
- Ton (CVC), which has a consonant, a vowel, and another consonant in that order
Words with consonant clusters include:
- Pro (CCV), which has two consonants in-a-row and one vowel afterwards
- Old (VCC), which has one vowel and two consonants in-a-row afterwards
- Spree (CCCVC), which has three consonants in-a-row and one vowel afterwards, and finally one consonant
- Arcs (VCCC), which has one vowel and three consonants in-a-row afterwards
- Strengths (CCCVCCCCC), which has three consonants in-a-row, one vowel afterwards, and finally five consonants in a row
Consonants have friction when they are spoken, mostly using the position of the tongue against the lips, teeth and roof of the mouth. b and p are plosives, using the lips to produce a tiny sharp sound. Phonetics texts give more details, with diagrams. Consonants may be voiced[2] or unvoiced.[3] The th in the is voiced, but in breath is not.
- There are 21 consonant letters in English, for 24 consonant sounds in most English accents.[4]p242 Because of the history of the English language, there is no neat one-to-one relationship between letter and sound. th and ch each stand for a single sound, and x in fox stands for two sounds (ks). All these letters are consonants:
- B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y and Z (and sometimes A, E, I, O and U). W and Y are often used as consonants, but they are sometimes used as vowels. For example, in the word yellow, Y is a consonant, but in the word happy, it is a vowel.
- The rest of the letters of the alphabet are called vowels. Vowels are underdone, for there are about 20 vowel sounds in most English accents.[4]p237 The vowels are:
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