pronunciation of the letter U

[TaiwanPofLee]

:shock: I don't see what OUP's transcription of the other vowels could possibly have to do with it. The transcriptions don't matter - they're just attempts at reflecting what native speakers say; and many people have told you that.

b

Thank you all for your replies.

I would now say the pronunciation of the letter 'u' is the same as that of the word 'you' as I did before.

The following reply to another thread question of mine by N Senbei is quoted for reference:

N Senbei

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Re: Is the long u sound pronounced as [iu:] rather than as [yu:] ?

The following is quoted from “The sounds of language: An introduction to phonetics” by Henry Rogers.

In principle, any vowel position can be used for a glide. A subscript cap [ ̯ ] is used to show lack of syllabicity, that is, to change a vowel symbol to that of a glide, as in [ ə̯ ɛ̯ ʌ̯ ]. Four glides [ i̯ u̯ y̯ ɯ̯ ] are so common that they have their own symbols: [ j w ɥ ɰ ].

As you can see, with a diacritic [ ̯ ], [ i̯ ] is no longer a pure vowel but a glide, and it represents the same sound as a glide [ j ]. So, obviously there is no difference between the pronunciation of "You" and "U."​

 

[konungursvia]

The name of the letter 'U' starts with a glide. The symbol for that glide is /j/. The symbol /y/ is used in a phonemic transcription of French; that sound does not occur in RP (or in any variant that I've heard).

b

Scots use it for the vowel in 'book'.

 

[BobK]

What consenting adults do Up There is their affair. I mean, they even pronounce loch right, ;-)

b

 

[BobK]

...[quoted in earlier post]

The following is quoted from “The sounds of language: An introduction to phonetics” by Henry Rogers.

In principle, any vowel position can be used for a glide. A subscript cap [ ̯ ] is used to show lack of syllabicity, that is, to change a vowel symbol to that of a glide, as in [ ə̯ ɛ̯ ʌ̯ ]. Four glides [ i̯ u̯ y̯ ɯ̯ ] are so common that they have their own symbols: [ j w ɥ ɰ ].

As you can see, with a diacritic [ ̯ ], [ i̯ ] is no longer a pure vowel but a glide, and it represents the same sound as a glide [ j ]. So, obviously there is no difference between the pronunciation of "You" and "U."​

I've just realized that this explains Wikipedia's transcriptions: they just omitted the diacritics.

b