How do you spell short vowel sounds?
Newbie here.
If I wanted to spell out the sounds short vowels make, would these be accurate? a - ah, e - eh, i - ee, o - ou, u - uh
No, you have to use standard but specialized symbols.
- ɑ as in father.
- æ as in ham.
- ɛ as in dress.
- ɪ as in kit.
- ɔ as in fought.
- ʌ as in cut.
There’s also:
- ə as in the unstressed syllable of about.
- ɝ as in nurse.
- ɚ as in the unstressed syllable of farmer.
and several more like those.
This is because no so-called “spelling pronunciations” are unambiguous in all cases and accent-neutral.