English words without vowels 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 word is "tsktsks", pronounced . The mathematical expression "nth" , as in "delighted to
English alphabet and "ex", in "-es" ("aitches, esses, exes"). Plurals of vowels end in "-es" ("aes, ees, ies, oes, ues"); these are rare. All letters may stand for themselves, generally in capitalized form ("okay" or "OK", "emcee" or "MC"), and plurals may be based on these ("aes" or "As", "cees" or "Cs", etc.") The names of the letters are for the most part direct descendants, via French, of the Latin (and Etruscan) names. (See Latin alphabet: Origins.) The regular phonological developments (in rough chronological order) are: The novel forms are "aitch", a regular development of Medieval Latin "acca"; "jay", a new letter