I always believed that all English words contained at least one vowel, and have always been fasinated with the non-vowel containing words I have heard my Slovak mother use e.g. "krk" meaning "neck, which I say as "kirk" to her dismay.  

While looking at the "Favorite Word" thread, Jack posted the word "crwth".  NO VOWEL! Although when pronounced it looks like the W is converted to a U. How many English words exist that do not contain vowels??

Ciao,
Barnett

How ‘bout

fly
try
by

:D

a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y are all vowels ...  

any words, not including contractions, that don’t contain these

Just to make the matter more complicated I learned many years ago in school that every syllable has to have a vowel sound; but not necessarily a vowel. ::)

in Australia, where I went to school, we were taught that English had 5 vowels

In French, which I also speak fluently (and currently), there are 6 vowels because "y" is included

I agree that the imortant distinction is vowels v’s vowel sounds. What does the doctor say ?

For words without vowels, I think there are quite a few woppers in Welsh ! (but I don’t know what they sound like!)

Maybe it is because I am from Canada, but we were taught the following rule when it came to vowels in English:

a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y

So I learnt we had 5 and a half vowels!  ;)

As to whopping vowelless Welsh words:  I know of at least w and y in Welsh that represent vowel sounds, and there could well be others that I’m not aware of.  Most of the more intimidating Welsh words I’ve seen contain the w and/or y in a vowel-sound usage.  A clear example of that is my name, the first third of which appears to be vowelless.  In pronunciation, however, it Dwy- contains TWO vowel sounds.  ;D  So are there really any vowelless Welsh words?  I don’t know….

I have problems with words with no vowel/sounds because in Maori every syllable *has* to end in a vowel, and while I don’t speak it fluently I’m definitely used to seeing it, hearing it, and speaking the occasional word or phrase in it. I probably could say words with no vowels if I tried, but I’d have to have a native speaker of the language there to help me with the pronounciation.

Stolen from an extremely old Frank and Ernest cartoon:

"F W WNT T TLK RLLY GD, W’LL HV T NVNT VLWS."

(And I found the original cartoon!)

[quote author=Stargzer link=board=spell;num=1029467082;start=0#8 date=09/17/02 at 12:22:03]
"F W WNT T TLK RLLY GD, W’LL HV T NVNT VLWS."

During the major troubles in the Balkans a few years ago, a wonderfully satirical news item made the email rounds. It announced that the U.S., because of the paucity of vowels in the various Balkan languages, was donating several planeloads of vowels . . .

Read the full text at www.theonion.com/onion2816/vowels2816.html

*nods* I was trying to think where I’d seen that so I could drop it in. Thanks for mentioning it.

Nods?

Nods?

Kalasin made perfect sense to me…

The ‘nods’ was an action…hence the asterisks around it. Like *walks down the shops to buy juice*  :) General practice in my other forums and stuff…

My Scrabble experience pays off in a non-Scrabble related field!  Yes!

Here’s a list of the words containing no vowels which are currently valid in North American Scrabble play:

BRR    
BRRR    
CRWTH    
CRWTHS    
CWM    
CWMS  
HM    
HMM    
MM    
NTH    
PFFT    
PSST    
SH    
SHH  
TSK    
TSKS    
TSKTSK    
TSKTSKS  (fifty point bonus!)

(Incidentally, did I put the hyphen in the right place when I wrote "non-Scrabble related?")

Wow I had no idea that all those words (well i knew some of them) were valid recognized words. Ya learn somethin new everyday!  Keep Playin scrabble…..