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 low back vowels English, the vowel in words such as "thought," "force," and "north," which merged earlier on in these varieties of English, undergoes a conditional split based on syllable structure: closed syllables have a higher vowel quality such as [oː] (possibly even [oʊ] in broad Cockney varieties), and open syllables have a lower vowel quality [ɔ̝ː] or a centering diphthong [ɔə]. Originally-open syllables with an inflectional suffix (such as "bored") retain the lower vowel quality, creating minimal pairs such as "bored" vs. "board" . The merger is a merger of the English vowels and that is used by many female speakers of