I also don’t know IPA very well, and I can’t assume anyone else does, so I tend to just say things like “y sound”.
That’s the problem right there though, you’re assuming that ‘y sound’ corresponds to the letter Y in English. The letter Y can represent either the phoneme /j/ (pronounced as the syllable-initial y), or the smallcaps i. The general rule is that syllable-initially Y represents /j/, elsewhere it represents the smallcaps i. Same goes for W, it’s /w/ syllable-initially, /u/ (or smallcaps omega, or barred-u depending on your dialect) elsewhere. R is similar but there’s a lot more variability in how it’s pronounced by individual people, for some people “bird” has a distinct consonant in there, for others it’s just an r-flavored vowel, for people like me it’s not there at all because I speak a non-rhotic dialect but I lengthen the preceding vowel somewhat as compensation.
Linguists tend to be a bit more specific than me. There may be a slight difference between /i/ and /j/, but they’re really close. It doesn’t seem to be enough to justify one being a vowel and the other being a consonant.
I tried listening to the recordings of /i/ vs /j/ on Wikipedia. /i/ just had /i/, but the recording for /j/ is /ja/, so it’s hard to concentrate on the /j/. It sure sounds a lot like /ia/. Similarly, /w/ had /wa/, which sounds a heck of a lot like /ua/.
I feel like /y/ just means that you start out transitioning from /i/ to another vowel. You tend to emphasize the following vowel more. But since you could be transitioning to any vowel, it doesn’t make sense that /y/ represents the transition itself. The only constant is it starts out as /i/.
A particularly interesting case is /jiː/ (Old English pronoun that is now spelled “ye”). It’s clearly not just /i/, and /ii/ would sound identical. But it does seem to be somewhat of a palindrome. The /i/ at the end is extended longer, but the sounds are the same forwards and backwards. There’s a slight change in the sound or emphasis between them, so it might be /ieiː/ or something where it moves to a subtly different vowel and back.
I am not interested in being an introductory phonology/phonetics textbook, but if you want to know why linguists think that semivowels should be considered a separate category to vowels, there is plenty of writing out there on the subject.I’m bowing out from further participation.
That’s the problem right there though, you’re assuming that ‘y sound’ corresponds to the letter Y in English. The letter Y can represent either the phoneme /j/ (pronounced as the syllable-initial y), or the smallcaps i. The general rule is that syllable-initially Y represents /j/, elsewhere it represents the smallcaps i. Same goes for W, it’s /w/ syllable-initially, /u/ (or smallcaps omega, or barred-u depending on your dialect) elsewhere. R is similar but there’s a lot more variability in how it’s pronounced by individual people, for some people “bird” has a distinct consonant in there, for others it’s just an r-flavored vowel, for people like me it’s not there at all because I speak a non-rhotic dialect but I lengthen the preceding vowel somewhat as compensation.
Linguists tend to be a bit more specific than me. There may be a slight difference between /i/ and /j/, but they’re really close. It doesn’t seem to be enough to justify one being a vowel and the other being a consonant.
I tried listening to the recordings of /i/ vs /j/ on Wikipedia. /i/ just had /i/, but the recording for /j/ is /ja/, so it’s hard to concentrate on the /j/. It sure sounds a lot like /ia/. Similarly, /w/ had /wa/, which sounds a heck of a lot like /ua/.
I feel like /y/ just means that you start out transitioning from /i/ to another vowel. You tend to emphasize the following vowel more. But since you could be transitioning to any vowel, it doesn’t make sense that /y/ represents the transition itself. The only constant is it starts out as /i/.
A particularly interesting case is /jiː/ (Old English pronoun that is now spelled “ye”). It’s clearly not just /i/, and /ii/ would sound identical. But it does seem to be somewhat of a palindrome. The /i/ at the end is extended longer, but the sounds are the same forwards and backwards. There’s a slight change in the sound or emphasis between them, so it might be /ieiː/ or something where it moves to a subtly different vowel and back.
I am not interested in being an introductory phonology/phonetics textbook, but if you want to know why linguists think that semivowels should be considered a separate category to vowels, there is plenty of writing out there on the subject.I’m bowing out from further participation.