langvokalen

Langvokalen is the linguistic term for vowels that are pronounced with greater duration than short vowels. In languages where vowel length is phonemic, the length difference can distinguish words and meaning; in languages where length is not contrastive, it mainly affects prosody, tempo, or stress placement.

Phonetic realization typically includes longer duration and may be accompanied by subtle changes in timbre. In some systems, long vowels also interact with the length of surrounding consonants, contributing to an overall mora-based rhythm of the language.

Orthography varies by language. Some languages mark long vowels with diacritics (for example á, í) or by doubling the vowel (aa, ii). Others use dedicated writing marks or do not encode length explicitly. In Japanese, for instance, long vowels are indicated by a special symbol in kana (chōonpu) or by romanization with macrons, depending on the system.

Cross-linguistic distribution: long vowels are phonemic in several language families, including Finnish and Hungarian, where vowel length contrasts lexical meaning. In Japanese and some other languages, vowel length forms a lexical or contrastive element, while in others it is largely a prosodic feature.

Historical notes: vowel length often originates from historical vowel changes and may be lost or reestablished in different languages. In modern phonology, langvokalen is a core aspect of syllable structure and rhythm.