This page is all about vowels:
We will investigate what vowels are -

A vowel is a sound recognized as a part of speech which can be produced by humans, animals, electronics, musical instruments or any other sound making device which can produce a pitch and two strong harmonic overtones. and listen to some electronically produced examples I made while at Cal Arts. (please wait until this loads - it might take a minute)

Here is a vowel chart of the 11 standard American vowels.

Here is a sentence to help remember them.
"We will make them bad hot coffee(with a Brooklyn "aw") some snow would cool."