As we sat beside their burrows in the cold Kalahari mornings, the meerkats sheltered behind us from the keen dawn wind. When no stumps were close by, tamer individuals would sometimes climb up our backs and take their turns as sentinels from our shoulders or heads.
12 states start with a vowel: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah. A vowel is any letter that is not a consonant!! A,E,I,O,U are all the vowels sometimes Y is considered a vowel.
A better question is: How many vowels and consonants are there in the English language?   The answer is: it depends on dialect and variation. RP has 24 consonants and 23 vowels, whilst American English has 25 consonants and 19 vowels.   The phonology of the English language is a big subject.