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
Checked and free vowels Checked and free vowels In phonetics and phonology, checked vowels are those that commonly stand in a stressed closed syllable; and free vowels are those that commonly stand in a stressed open syllable. The terms "checked vowel" and "free vowel" originated in English phonetics and phonology. They are seldom used for the description of other languages even though a distinction between vowels that usually have to be followed by a consonant and other vowels is common in most Germanic languages. The terms "checked vowel" and "free vowel" correspond closely to the terms "lax vowel" and "tense vowel" respectively, but many