The vowel system or vocalism of a Langue is the organized whole of the Voyelle S that the Locuteur S of this language use.

For example, the vowel system Japanese comprises five vowels.

Change of the vowel system

One speaks about the change of the vowel system to in general indicate the general modifications of the vowel system Latin, modifications leading to the vowel system of the Romance Langues current. They are the modifications of the Système in itself, and not of the phenomena of deteriorations of vowels. This change took place between and the 3rd century after J.C.

Latin indeed passed, in a few centuries, of a vowel system based partly on differences in lengths of the vowels ( has short , has long ), with a system where the length of the vowels is not felt any more. Moreover, in this new system, which remained until our days, appeared a tonic stress (in modern French, one in general finds it on the last syllable of the word).

The change of the system determined the change of the nature even of certain vowels. /a/ length as /a/ runs became simply of /a/ in Former French; on the other hand, /i/ short changed in /e/ closed whereas /i/ length remained /i/. Moreover, the appearance of, the element tonic stress absent from the old Latin system, influenced considerably the evolution of the Lexique: certain vowels, because not too accentuated or placed far from the accent, disappeared or deteriorated. Others on the contrary were reinforced thanks to the presence of this Accent.