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Long
◌ː
IPA Number
503
Encoding
Entity (decimal)
ː
Unicode (hex)
U+02D0
Half-long
◌ˑ
IPA Number
504
Encoding
Entity (decimal)
ˑ
Unicode (hex)
U+02D1
Extra-short
◌̆
IPA Number
505
Encoding
Entity (decimal)
̆
Unicode (hex)
U+0306
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, for example in Arabic, Estonian, Finnish, Fijian, Japanese, Kannada, Kyrgyz, Latin, Malayalam, Old English, Scottish Gaelic, Tamil and Vietnamese.
While vowel length alone does not change word meaning in most dialects of modern English, it is said to do so in a few dialects, such as Australian English, Lunenburg English, New Zealand English, and South African English. It also plays a lesser phonetic role in Cantonese, unlike in other varieties of Chinese, which do not have phonemic vowel length distinctions.
Many languages do not distinguish vowel length phonemically, meaning that vowel length does not change meaning. However, the amount of time a vowel is uttered can change based on factors such as the phonetic characteristics of the sounds around it, for instance whether the vowel is followed by a voiced or a voiceless consonant.
Languages that do distinguish vowel length phonemically usually only distinguish between short vowels and long vowels. Very few languages distinguish three phonemic vowel lengths; some that do so are Estonian, Luiseño, and Mixe. However, languages with two vowel lengths may permit words in which two adjacent vowels are of the same quality: Japanese hōō, "phoenix", or Ancient Greek ἀάατος[a.áː.a.tos],[1] "inviolable". Some languages that do not ordinarily have phonemic vowel length but permit vowel hiatus may similarly exhibit sequences of identical vowel phonemes that yield phonetically long vowels, such as Georgian გააადვილებ [ɡa.a.ad.vil.eb], "you will facilitate it".
^Liddell, H. G., and R. Scott (1996). A Greek-English Lexicon (revised 9th ed. with supplement). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.1
linguistics, vowellength is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowellength is an...
speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (length). They are usually voiced and are closely involved...
Scottish VowelLength Rule (also known as Aitken's law after A. J. Aitken, the Scottish linguist who formulated it) describes how vowellength in Scots...
however, in languages like Italian, Norwegian and Swedish, vowellength and consonant length are interdependent. For example, in Norwegian and Swedish...
by indicating the vowellength only when it was necessary (sometimes by doubling the vowel but also in other ways). As the length was implicit in open...
the Latin alphabet to some features of Old Polish phonology, such as vowellength and nasalization, or the palatalization of consonants. Thus, Old Polish...
homophones. Vowellength: French uses a circumflex to indicate what had been a long vowel (although nowadays this rather indicates a difference in vowel quality...
representation of vowellength of the vowels (assuming the vowels are even written): In fast-spoken colloquial Hebrew, when a vowel falls beyond two syllables...
phonemic long vowels /aː eː iː oː uː/ and five short vowels /a e i o u/. In the later dialects of the 1st millennium CE, phonemic vowellength disappeared...
sounds very similar to that of Dakota, also a Siouan language, plus vowellength, preaspirated obstruents and an interdental fricative (like "th" in English...
פַּתָּח patákh, IPA: [paˈtaχ], Biblical Hebrew: pattā́ḥ) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line ⟨ אַ ⟩ underneath a letter. In modern...
for most of the speakers who still utilize vowellength contrastively, long /ʌː/ is actually [ɘː]. Vowellength is a remnant of rising tone, first emerging...
nasals (rare in the world's languages). Additionally, length is contrastive for consonants, but not vowels. In Icelandic, the main stress is always on the first...
case of á, é, í, ó, ú, and with the double acute in the case of ő, ű. Vowellength has phonemic significance in Hungarian, that is, it distinguishes different...
significant changes during the Koine Greek period concerned vowels: these were the loss of vowellength distinction, the shift of the Ancient Greek system of...
of Muscogee consists of thirteen consonants and three vowel qualities, which distinguish length, tone and nasalization. It also makes use of the gemination...
known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different...
[ok]) which results in eleven vowel phonemes. In this analysis, vowellength is a key contrastive feature of the vowels. The following chart lists all...
called Chirik (Hebrew: חִירִיק ḥiriq IPA: [χiˈʁik]) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a single dot ⟨ ִ ⟩ underneath the letter. In Modern...
(Hebrew: שׁוּרוּק, IPA: [ʃuˈʁuk], also known as shuruq) are two Hebrew niqqud vowel signs that represent the sound [u]. In an alternative, Ashkenazi naming...
syllables so that vowellength and accent position largely co-occur. Russian and Bulgarian have eliminated distinctive vowellength and tone and converted...
y with no circumflex do not necessarily represent short vowels; see § Predicting vowellength from orthography. The grave accent (`) is sometimes used...
[citation needed] Comanche distinguishes vowels by length. Vowels can be either long or short. Long vowels are never devoiced and in the orthography...
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