Each of a series of vowel sounds used as a standard reference point to assist in the description and classification of vowel sounds in any language.
 Example sentencesExamples
-  The links at the bottom of this section are to diagrams of acoustic data plotted onto cardinal vowel charts.
 -  Leave it to the IPA to reserve the usual print glyph for ‘a’ for a cardinal vowel sound that is hardly ever used in any language.
 -  An analysis is presented of the recording of the cardinal vowels made by Daniel Jones.
 -  The primary and secondary cardinal vowels are often referred to by a number as well as by their symbols.
 -  By ` map ’, we mean take each vowel sound and discover which of the cardinal vowels it most closely resembles.