Alphabet alphabet is sometimes claimed to be as small, but it actually consists of 18 letters, including the ʻokina and five long vowels. However, Hawaiian Braille has only 13 letters.) While Rotokas has a small alphabet because it has few phonemes to represent (just eleven), Book Pahlavi was small because many letters had been "conflated"—that is, the graphic distinctions had been lost over time, and diacritics were not developed to compensate for this as they were in Arabic, another script that lost many of its distinct letter shapes. For example, a comma-shaped letter represented "g", "d", "y", "k", or "j". However,
Phonological history of English high front vowels Phonological history of English high front vowels The high and mid-height front vowels of English (vowels of "i" and "e" type) have undergone a variety of changes over time, often varying from dialect to dialect. Middle English had a long close front vowel , and two long mid front vowels: the close-mid and the open-mid . The three vowels generally correspond to the modern spellings , and respectively, although other spellings are also possible. The spellings that became established in Early Modern English are mostly still used today, although the qualities of the sounds have changed significantly. These and generally