Editing Telugu language (section)

=== Vowels ===
Vowels in Telugu contrast in length; there are short and long versions of all vowels except for /æ/, which only occurs as long. Long vowels can occur in any position within the word, but native Telugu words do not end in a long vowel. Short vowels occur in all positions of a word, with the exception of /o/, which does not occur word-finally.<ref name=":1" /> The vowels of Telugu are illustrated below, along with the Telugu script and romanisation.

{|class="wikitable" style=text-align:center

|+Vowels (అచ్చులు ''acchulu'')
|-
!
! colspan="2" |[[Front vowel|Front]]
! colspan="2" |[[Central vowel|Central]]
! colspan="2" |[[Back vowel|Back]]
|-
![[Close vowel|Close]]
|{{IPA link|i}} ఇ '''i'''||{{IPA link|iː}} ఈ '''ī'''
| colspan="2" rowspan="2" | 
|{{IPA link|u}} ఉ '''u'''||{{IPA link|uː}} ఊ '''ū'''
|-
![[Mid vowel|Mid]]
|{{IPA link|e}} ఎ '''e'''||{{IPA link|eː}} ఏ '''ē'''
|{{IPA link|o}} ఒ '''o'''||{{IPA link|oː}} ఓ '''ō'''
|-
![[Open vowel|Open]]
| colspan="2" | 
|{{IPA link|a}} ~ {{IPA link|ɐ}} అ '''a'''||{{IPA link|aː}} ~ {{IPA link|ɐː}} ఆ '''ā'''
| colspan="2" | 
|}

* An emphatic u maybe added to loans ending with a consonant, eg. school > iskūlu.

==== Allophones ====
In most dialects, the vowel {{IPA|/æː/}} only occurs in loan words. In the [[Guntur]] dialect, {{IPA|[æː]}} is a frequent allophone of {{IPA|/aː/}} in certain verbs in the past tense.

Telugu has two diphthongs: {{IPA|/ai/}} ({{Lang|te|ఐ}}) and {{IPA|/au/}} ({{Lang|te|ఔ}}).

Roots alter according to whether the first vowel is tense or lax.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Wilkinson|1974|p=251}}</ref>{{fix|text=need illustrations}} Also, if the second vowel is open (i.e., {{IPA|/aː/}} or {{IPA|/a/}}), then the first vowel is more open and centralised (e.g., {{IPA|[m'''ɛː'''ka]}} 'goat', as opposed to {{IPA|[m'''eː'''ku]}} 'nail').{{citation needed|date=December 2012}} Telugu words also have vowels in inflectional suffixes that are harmonised with the vowels of the preceding syllable.<ref>A Grammar of the Telugu Language, p. 295, [[Charles Philip Brown]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=JOgUAAAAYAAJ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221013131933/https://books.google.com/books?id=JOgUAAAAYAAJ|date=13 October 2022}}</ref>