Editing Vowel (section)

===Words consisting of only vowels===
It is not uncommon for short grammatical words to consist of only vowels, such as ''a'' and ''I'' in English. Lexical words are somewhat rarer in English and are generally restricted to a single syllable: ''eye, awe, owe'', and in non-rhotic accents ''air, ore, err''. Vowel-only words of more than one syllable are generally foreign loans, such as ''ai'' (two syllables: {{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɑː|i}}) for the [[maned sloth]], or proper names, such as ''[[Iowa]]'' (in some accents: {{IPAc-en|ˈ|aɪ|.|oʊ|.|ə}}).

However, vowel sequences in [[hiatus (linguistics)|hiatus]] are more freely allowed in some other languages, most famously perhaps in [[Bantu languages|Bantu]] and [[Polynesian languages|Polynesian]] languages, but also in [[Japanese language|Japanese]] and [[Finnic languages]]. In such languages there tends to be a larger variety of vowel-only words. In [[Swahili language|Swahili]] (Bantu), for example, there is ''[[wikt:aua|aua]]'' 'to survey' and ''[[wikt:eua|eua]]'' 'to purify' (both three syllables); in Japanese, ''[[wikt:aoi|aoi]]'' 青い 'blue/green' and ''[[wikt:oioi|oioi]]'' 追々 'gradually' (three and four [[On (Japanese prosody)|morae]]); and in Finnish, {{lang|fi|aie}} 'intention' and {{lang|fi|auo}} 'open!' (both two syllables), although some dialects pronounce them as {{lang|fi|aije}} and {{lang|fi|auvo}}. In [[Urdu]], āye/aaie {{Script/Nastaliq|آئیے}} or āyn {{Script/Nastaliq|آئیں}} 'come' is used. [[Hawaiian language|Hawaiian]], and the Polynesian languages generally, have unusually large numbers of such words, such as {{lang|haw|aeāea}} (a small green fish), which is three syllables: {{lang|haw|ae.āe.a}}. Most long words involve [[reduplication]], which is quite [[Productivity (linguistics)|productive]] in Polynesian: {{lang|haw|ioio}} 'grooves', {{lang|haw|eaea}} 'breath', {{lang|haw|uaua}} 'tough' (all four syllables), {{lang|haw|auēuē}} 'crying' (five syllables, from {{lang|haw|uē (uwē)}} 'to weep'), {{lang|haw|uoa}} or {{lang|haw|uouoa}} 'false mullet' (sp. fish, three or five syllables).{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}