quasi-vowels

Updated: August 20, 2026

It would, I think, be hard to make her feel just how to pronounce DICTIONARY without her erring either toward DICTIONAYRY or DICTION'RY, and, of course the word is neither one nor the other. For no system of marks in a lexicon can tell one how to pronounce a word. The only way is to hear it, especially in a language like English which is so full of unspellable, suppressed vowels and quasi-vowels.

Helen Keller - The Story of my life; with her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy