This is a chapter from my fourth book called When hunger yearns
I was relaxing in the quiet of the morning while my mind was thinking loudly. What is the longest word that only contains vowels? I rushed to Googleland to find out. I was told that euouae is the word that I am looking for. It also has the most consecutive vowels of any word. It holds two Guinness World Records for these two attributes. They describe the word as a medieval musical term and mnemonic which indicates the vowels of the syllables of "seculorum Amen," which ends the "Gloria Patri." The phrase is related to the translation, "unto the ages of ages". According to wikipedia that phrase possibly expresses the eternal duration of God's attributes, but it could also be an idiomatic way to represent a very long passage of time. This is at least the third time I am encountering the eternity of God in the writing of this book.
Now I wonder what is the longest word without vowels? Google tells me that it is a word brought over from Welsh that is no longer in use. Twyndyllyngs and means twins. This too also holds a Guinness World Record. Why do we need vowels? Can a spoken language exist without vowels? The simple answer is no. Consonants stop the flow of air while vowels represent the flow of air to produce sound. While we are here, what are some other similarly interesting things about vowels? What is the shortest English word that has all five vowel letters? That word is eunoia which means "beautiful thinking". While iouea is shorter it is just a scientific name. What about the longest word using all vowels exactly once? According to Wikipedia the words abstemiously, affectiously and tragediously satisfy this question. What about the shortest word where the vowels are in order? That would be aerious. The longest word in the English language with only one vowel is strengths. The longest word in the English language with only one vowel repeated is strengthlessnesses.
So far I have treated the questions as if there were only five vowels strictly speaking. Some places consider y a vowel and even w. Some places consider these as semivowels. I noticed that why sounds just like y - does that mean "wh" is silent? My friend Gemini tells me that while why and y end up sounding similar, the "wh" does have a subtle role in creating that sound. What word has the most silent letters? I could not get a definitive answer but queue is a strong contender. When I wrote my last book called Love Letters I found out that in some ancient languages, vowels were considered to be the soul or essence of the word. Now I have noticed that the word vowel contains the letters of love and w. Now I must say that vowels are the heart of words. If you have been foolishly in love before you would appreciate this clever wordplay and humor, "What is special in Love? Nothing special. It has two vowels, two consonants and two fools!"
According to my friend Gemini the word "vowel" traces back to the Latin phrase "littera vocalis" meaning "vocal letter." Stemming from the root meaning "to speak," it reflects how vowels are sounds made freely with the voice. While there are strictly five vowel letters and sometimes y and w, there are fourteen vowel sounds. I read that vowels can be found in almost every word. Even when a word isn't spelt with a vowel, it will almost always include a vowel sound. Do you know of lipograms? Lipograms are defined as compositions from which the writer systematically omits a certain letter or certain letters of the alphabet. A reverse lipogram or antilipo is where every word must contain a particular letter. While a pangram is a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet, ideally with each letter used only once. Here is a fun fact that I found on Reddit: If Celine Dion sang only the vowels in her name, it would be the lyrics to Old McDonalds Farm. After writing this chapter, I now have a greater love and appreciation for vowels. Can you say which letter was not used in the writing of this chapter?
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