Appendix:Words that comprise a single sound

Languages may or may not allow words that consist of a single phoneme. Of those that do, these are generally vowels that serve as function words (grammar words, like prepositions and pronouns), such as English a and I; interjections, such as English ah! and sh!; or onomatopoeia, such as zzz… for sleeping. However, there are a smaller number of cases of content words that also consist of a single vowel sound. These are especially common in monosyllabic tonal languages such as those of East Asia. Words that consist of a single consonant sound are rarer.

This is a list of content words in various languages that comprise a single sound, in the sense that they can be written with a single letter of the International Phonetic Alphabet not counting diacritics, and that stand on their own. Only national or official languages with more than ten million speakers are included.

Notes:

• Function words, interjections and onomatopoeia, dialects, proper names, and words which cannot stand on their own (like French a (“[s/he] has”)) are excluded from the list. With such words, contrived vowel-only sentences can be made, such as dialectal Danish A æ ue å æ ø i æ å (“I am out on the island in the river”).
• The entries roughly follow the alphabetical order of the IPA letters, based on graphic similarity.

Vowels

Sound (IPA)	Written form	Meaning	Language	Notes
/a/	唖	muteness	Japanese	obscure
/aː/	aa, a	stream, river	Dutch	rare
/ɐ̃ː/	ả	big sister	Vietnamese	dialectical
/ɑ̃/	an	year	French
/e/	柄	handle, stem	Japanese
/eꜜ/	絵 餌	1. painting, drawing 2. feed, bait	Japanese
/ē/	ê	to be numb, ashamed	Vietnamese
/ê/	ề	let's go!	Vietnamese
/ě/	ế	not saleable, unmarried	Vietnamese
/eː/	air ere eyre heir		English	Australian and Irish accents (hay, hair, hare as well in h-dropping accents)
/ɛ/	haie ais	hedge plank	French
/ɛ̄/	e	to be afraid	Vietnamese
/ɛː/	애 (ae)	child	Korean
/ɝː/	err	to make a mistake	English
/ɤ́/	屙 (ē)	to defecate or urinate	Mandarin	colloquial
/ɤ̌/	é	1. chant a poem 2. a goose 3. a moth 4. to blackmail; erroneous	Mandarin
/ɤ̂/	è	1. hungry, to starve 2. evil; fierce; to dislike 3. to hiccup 4. to grip, control 5. harness 6. palate 7. fish hawk 8. calyx	Mandarin
/ɤ̄ː/	ơ	clay pot, be indifferent	Vietnamese
/ɤ̃ː/	ở	to reside, to stay	Vietnamese
/ɤ̂ˀː/	ợ	to belch	Vietnamese
/i/	hie y	hie (tool) there, to it	French
/i/	胃	stomach	Japanese	Also 'boar' below.
/i/	이 (i)	1. tooth 2. louse 3. two 4. cog	Korean	(Sino-Korean)
/iꜜ/	偉 意 医 井 亥 寝 藺	1. greatness 2. feelings, meaning 3. medicine 4. a well 5. boar 6. sleep 7. a rush	Japanese	'boar' is /iꜜ/ or /i/.
/î/	yì	1. a unit of weight 2. a line in a dancing group 3. meaning	Mandarin
/î/	ì	be inert, sluggish	Vietnamese
/îˀ/	ị	defecate	Vietnamese
/ī/	y	to conform	Vietnamese
/ĩ/	ỷ	to depend on, Idesia, niche for ancestral tablets	Vietnamese
/ǐ/	ý	an idea, intention, circumspection	Vietnamese
/o/	eau haut os	water high bones (pl)	French
/oꜜ/	尾 雄 緒	1. tail, ridge 2. a male 3. cord, thread	Japanese
/ō/	ô	suburb, betel box, umbrella, square	Vietnamese
/ô/	ồ	to rush	Vietnamese
/õ/	ổ	nest, bed	Vietnamese
/ǒ/	ố	spotted, dirty	Vietnamese
/oː/	ó	old	Hungarian	used mostly in compounds
/oː/	오 (o)	five	Korean	(Sino-Korean)
/oː/	å, å	stream	Swedish, Norwegian
/oː/	owe		English	Irish accent
/ø/	œufs	eggs	French
/øː/	ö	isle	Swedish
/øː/	외 (oe)	outside	Korean	pronounced [weː] by many
/øː/	öö	night	Estonian
/øˀ/	ø	island	Danish
/ɔˀ/	å	(small) river	Danish
/ɔ̄/	o	to flirt, paternal aunt/young girl, pork larynx	Vietnamese
/ɔ̌/	ó	eagle	Vietnamese
/ɔː/	awe haw haw haw hoar whore oar ore ore	fearful respect hawthorn berry nictitating membrane for a horse to turn to the left greyish prostitute paddle metal-bearing mineral seaweed	English	h- words in aitch-dropping accents, -r words in non-rhotic accents
/œ̃/	un	one	French
/u/	août houe houx	August hoe holly	French	août is also pronounced /ut/
/u/	우 (u)	1. suddenly 2. top	Korean	top is pronounced /u/ in North Korea
/u/	兎	The Hare, in the Chinese zodiac	Japanese
/uꜜ/	鵜 得 有	1. cormorant 2. get, obtain 3. bhava	Japanese	(2) is an inflection of eru
/ú/	wū	1. house, room 2. filth, filthy, to defile 3. tungsten 4. a crow, black 5. shaman, wizard	Mandarin
/ǔ/	wú	1. there is not; nothing	Mandarin
/ù/	wǔ	1. five 2. a dance, to dance, to flourish 3. to seal, to muffle 4.martial, valiant 5. ranks	Mandarin
/û/	wù	1. a thing, matter 2. mist, fog 3. an error, to miss, to harm 4. to realize 5. business, to strive for, to devote 6. to hate 7. to meet face to face 8. to warm up	Mandarin
/ū/	u	mother, swollen, tumour, to swell	Vietnamese
/û/	ù	quickly	Vietnamese
/ũ/	ủ	to keep covered for warmth, sullen	Vietnamese
/ûˀ/	ụ	a mound, basin	Vietnamese
/ɯ̌/	ứ	to climb, to accumulate, to exude	Vietnamese
/y/	위 (wi)	top	Korean	pronounced [wi] by many
/ý/	yū	1. doctrinaire, abstruse 2. silt, to silt up	Mandarin
/y̌/	yú	1. a fish 2. the surplus 3. foolish 4. yu (a wind instrument) 5. to catch fish, usurp 6. to exceed 7. nook	Mandarin
/ỳ/	yǔ	1. to give, support 2. rain 3. language 4. feather, wing	Mandarin
/ŷ/	yù	1. to encounter, to treat; treatment 2. wish, desire 3. prison, lawsuit 4. recover 5. jade 6. residence; to reside 7. ravine 8. reputation; to praise 9. give birth to, raise 10. to drive a vehicle, to ward off; imperial 11. in advance; to get ready 12. taro 13. region 14. sandpiper	Mandarin

Consonants

Single consonants are much less common as words. Slavic languages have consonantal prepositions, such as Russian к (k, “to”), с (s, “with”), and в (v, “in”), but these cannot stand on their own and so are not phonetic words.

Sound	Written form	Meaning	Language
/m̏/	唔 嘸／唔 呒	1. not; to hold in the mouth 2. unclear	Cantonese Taiwanese
/ŋ̏/	吾 梧 蜈 鼯 鋘／吾 梧 蜈 鼯 𬭌	1. I, us 2. Firmiana simplex; support 3. centipede 4. giant flying squirrel 5. sword	Cantonese
/ŋ̗/	五 午 啎, 忤 伍	1. five 2. noon 3. disobedient 4. army; associate with	Cantonese
/ŋ̀/	誤 寤 晤 悟／误 寤 晤 悟 (wù wù wù wù)	1. err, error, interfere 2. scarce 3. interview, meet 4. realize	Cantonese

References

• English: Oxford English Dictionary 2
• French: Petit Robert 1
• Italian: Cassell's Italian Dictionary
• Japanese: Shinmeikai Kokugo Jiten 4

Jeffrey's Japanese↔English Dictionary Server

• Mandarin: DeFrancis, ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, pocket ed.
• Vietnamese: The Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project