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Yes, the letter Y is a vowel or a consonant! In terms of sound, a vowel is 'a speech sound which is produced by comparatively open configuration of the vocal tract, with vibration of the vocal cords but without audible friction...', while a consonant is 'a basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed' (definitions from the New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998).
The letter Y can be used to represent different sounds in different words, and can therefore fit either definition. In myth or hymn it is clearly a vowel, and also in words such as my, where it stands for a diphthong (a combination of two vowel sounds). On the other hand, in a word like beyond there is an obstacle to the breath which can be heard between two vowels, and the same sound begins words like young and yes. (This consonant sound, like that of the letter W, is sometimes called a 'semivowel' because it is made in a similar way to a vowel, but functions in contrast to vowels when used in words.)
Whether the letter Y is a vowel or a consonant is therefore rather an arbitrary decision. The letter is probably more often used as a vowel, but in this role is often interchangeable with the letter I. However, the consonant sound is not consistently represented in English spelling by any other letter, and perhaps for this reason Y tends traditionally to be counted among the consonants.
Article # 2
Is the letter Y a vowel or a consonant?The letter Y stands for a consonant in "yoke" but for a vowel in "myth." The answer to the question is that Y is the only letter commonly used as both vowel and consonant in English. A consonant is a sound in spoken language (or alphabetic letter denoting the sound) that has no vocal sound of its own but relies upon a nearby vowel with which it can sound. Consonant is from the Latin words con 'with' and sonant 'sound'. A vowel is a sound in spoken language that has a vocal sound of its own; it is made by a fairly open configuration of the vocal tract. The letter Y is probably used more often as a vowel, but in the role of vowel it is often interchangeable with the letter I. They overlap, so Y is often pronounced like short or long I ("myth," "fly"), although sometimes like long E ("messy") and occasionally as a schwa ("myrtle," "satyr"). In "say" and "boy," Y forms a single sound with the preceding vowel, similar to the double-vowel combinations in "paid" and "void." The consonant sound Y is not consistently represented in English spelling by any other letter, which is probably why we tend to think of it mainly as a consonant. It has just one sound, the y of "youth" and "yearning." Around AD 100, about 700 years after the Roman alphabet had been created, the Romans added the letters Y and Z. They were copied directly from the Athenian Greek alphabet of the day and this was done to help in transliterating Greek words into Latin. The use of Y as a consonant goes back to medieval French and it was forcibly imported to England with the Norman Conquest of AD 1066.
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