AEIOU(Y) Together.

The reader might be forgiven for thinking that the subject of AEIOU(Y) words had been exhausted. There exists, however, at least one aspect of AEIOU(Y) which remains incomplete. There appears to have been no specific search for words in which the 5(6) vowels AEIOU(Y) occur as an unbroken group, in any order. In an attempt to remedy this omission, I found words representing 10 of the 720 AEIOUY permutations and 30 of the 120 AEIOU permutations. In this instance, extraneous vowels are admitted, so not all the examples are true AEIOU words. Most of the words are capitalised locations taken from the United States Board on Geographic Names and these are populated places unless stated otherwise. The remainder can be found in Hodge's Handbook of American Indians (Hodge), the Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition (OED), Cooper's An Archaic Dictionary (cad), Nomenclator Zoologicus (nz), A Dictionary of the Flowering Plants and Ferns by J.C. Willis, CUP 1966 (dfpf), and Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 5th Edition (WebC5).

Below, I offer one word for each vowel permutation where possible. The actual number of words found per permutation varies from a single word (permutation marked with an asterisk *) to many words (10 or more words marked with +). The lists read across the page.

AEIOUY TOGETHER

A large percentage of the AEIOUY words have the permutation AOUIYE and, strangely, this is the only permutation beginning with A for which I found words. One such is AANNZAOUIYE (Syria) with the added distinction of beginning with two doubled letters. No words were found for any of the 120 permutations beginning with E.

AOUIYE+     RAOUIYE (Syria)            IAOUYE*   TIAOUYE (Chad)

IAOYUE      XIAOYUE (China)            IOUAYE    EDIOUAYE
                                                 (depression in Chad)
OUAIYE+     SOUAIYE (Syria)

OUAYEI*     AOUAYEILLES (Avoyelles
            tribe - Hodge)

OUEIYA*     SOUEIYAUNG (Ban Phoun
            Soueiyaung - a
            destroyed populated
            place in Laos)
OUIAYE*     KOUIAYE (Guinea)           UIEAYO*   NAGUIEAYO
                                                 (Ivory Coast)
YEOUAI*     AYEOUAIS (Iowa
            tribe--Hodge)

AEIOU TOGETHER

In On Location With AEIOU(2002314), I included the word TAEIOUIHRA which can be found in An Archaic Dictionary by W.R. Cooper. It has an unbroken AEIOU group in which the five vowels occur in alphabetical order. Is this unique?

AEOU*     TAEIOUIHRA (cad)     AEOIU*     JUDAEOIULUS (a millipede
                                          - nz)

AEUIO*    PRAEUIOUS (OED       AIEOU*     BAIEOUA (Ivory Coast)
          - previous)

AIOUE+    AIOUEZ (Iowa         AOUEI+     LAOUEI (Niger)
          tribe - Hodge)

AOUIE+    CHAOUIE (Lebanon)    AUOIE      AUOIED (OED incursion
                                          1555cit)

EAOUI*    BEAOUINE (stream     EAUOI*     BEAUOIR (OED vail v.
          -CA Republic)                   1600 cit)

EIAOU     TIMEIAOUINE          EIOUA      TEIOUALT (mountain - Algeria)
          (Algeria)

EOAIU*    TEOAIUA (mt. - Ft.   EOUAI      TEOUAILE (mountain -
          Polynesia)                      Djibouti)

EOUIA     TEANDEOUIATA
          (Toanche, a Huron
          village - Hodge)

IAOUE+    MIAOUED (WebC5)      IEAOU*     MIEAOU (OED miaow int. & n.)

IEOUA+    NIEOUA (wadi--
          Mauritania)

IOUAE     AOUENTSIOUAERON
          (Winnebago tribe
          - Hodge)

IOUEA     IOUEA (a fossil      OAEUI*     POAEUI (an inlet--Papua NG)
          sponge - nz)

OAUEI*    POAUEI (an           OIAUE*     GOIAUE (stream--Mozambique)
          inlet--Papua NG)

OIEAU*    BOIEAU (stream
          --Belgium)

OUAEI*    KOUAEIR (Sidi
          Abd el Kader Moul
          Kouaeir is a
          shrine in
          Algeria)

OUAIE+    DJERBOUAIE
          (Syria)

OUEIA     KISHKANKOUEIAK
          (the Bear band
          of the Ottawa
          --Hodge)

UEIAO     KUEI-AO (China)      UEOIA*     MUEOIA (Mozambique)

UIEOA*    SEGUIEOA
         (Ivory Coast)

As well as IOUEA (above), the permutations AOUIE and OUAIE are words in their own right. For more on these words, the reader is referred to the Kickshaws item Iouea Is Not Unique (2003048).

A few words have two overlapping AEIOU groups. In the first three words below, this is made possible because the 6-vowel groups begin and end with the same vowel.

AIOUEA (a laurel genus - dfpf): AIOUE and IOUEA

BAIEOUA (Ivory Coast): AIEOU and IEOUA

KICHAOUEIAK (another word for the Bear band of the Ottawa - Hodge): AOUEI and OUEIA Finally, there is one amazing word which has four overlapping groups. This is because the first three letters of the 8-vowel group are repeated as the last three letters of the group. The word, OUEPERIGOUEIAOUEK (an Algonquian tribe - Hodge), contains the overlapping groups OUEIA, UEIAO, EIAOU and IAOUE.

Susan Thorpe 

Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England

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