The title to this page is quoted from Charles Hockett's A Course in Modern Linguistics (New York, Macmillan, 1958, page 17). He gives the following table six pages later, focusing on the English vowel phonemes as found in his own speech. See if you can determine the basis for the table, including its gaps, and create one of your own, based on your own speech, using different combinations of consonants.
| bee | ye | thee | beat | keen | beak | heel | keyed | Beal | |
| bay | yea 4 | they | bait | cane | bake | hail | bail | ||
| by | thy | bite | kine | bike | Hile 7 | bile | |||
| boy | coin | Hoyle 7 | boil | ||||||
| boo | you | boot | coon | cooed | Boole 7 | ||||
| bow 1 | though | boat | cone | whole | code | bowl | |||
| bow 2 | yow | thou | bout | howl | cowed | ||||
| baw | yaw | bought | hall | cawed | ball | bore | |||
| bah | bot | con | bock | cod | bar | ||||
| baa 3 | bat | can | back | Hal 8 | cad | ||||
| yeah 5 | bet | ken | beck | hell | Ked 9 | bell | bear | ||
| the 6 | but | buck | hull | cud | burr | ||||
| bit | kin | hill | kid | bill | beer | ||||
| book | could | bull | boor |
1 As for shooting an arrow. 2 As from the waist. 3 The bleat of a sheep; some people pronounce this the same as bah. 4 As in yea, team! 5 As in Oh yeah! Some people pronounce this so as to put it in the preceding row. 6 One way of pronouncing the word in isolation; the other way makes it identical with thee. 7 Surnames. 8 Nickname. 9 A trade name.