English words without vowels forms are reflected in orthography as contractions, such as "s", "ll", "d", and "n't". English words without vowels English orthography typically represents vowel sounds with the five conventional vowel letters , as well as , which may also be a consonant depending on context. However, outside of abbreviations, there are a handful of words in English that do not have vowels, either because the vowel sounds are not written with vowel letters or because the words themselves are pronounced without vowel sounds. There are very few lexical words (that is, not counting interjections) without vowel letters. The longest such lexical
Phonological history of English high back vowels Phonological history of English high back vowels Most dialects of modern English have two high back vowels: the near-close near-back rounded vowel found in words like "foot", and the close back rounded vowel (realized as central in many dialects) found in words like "goose". This article discusses the history of these vowels in various dialects of English, focusing in particular on phonemic splits and mergers involving these sounds. In the Old English vowel system, there was a pair of short and long high back vowels, and , both written (the longer vowel is often distinguished as in modern editions of