Questions tagged [diphthongs]

A phonetic sequence, consisting of two vowel targets, that is interpreted as a single vowel.

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11 votes
5 answers
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What is the difference between a diphthong and a glide?

It's easy for me to imagine the difference, but hard for me to conceptualize it. I guess one involves two vowels and the other involves a consonant, right? Am I on the right track, or is there a more ...
magnetar's user avatar
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11 votes
3 answers
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Is a diphthong one phoneme or two, or does it depend?

In Mitch's answer to "What is the difference between a diphthong and a glide?" and its comments it seems more than one of us is at least a bit confused as to how many phonemes a single diphthong ...
hippietrail's user avatar
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7 votes
3 answers
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Rationale for diphthongs

What is the rationale for considering di-, tri- &co. -phthongs separate entities? Why aren't these sounds interpreted as sequences of a vowel and a glide? How would be linguistics deficient if ...
kamil-s's user avatar
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0 votes
4 answers
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Why is the "long i" sound in English written /aɪ/?

The "long i" sound in English, as in "fight" is usually written /aɪ/, so fight = /faɪt/. But /a/ is the sound in "hat", and /ɪ/ is the sound in "hit". When I say the two together it doesn't sound ...
Jack M's user avatar
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5 votes
3 answers
675 views

What is an example of a language or dialect that contains triphthongs?

I spent some time on a research project examining spectrograms and coding vowels for speakers of American English from a few rural regions in the state of Oklahoma. I noticed that certain speakers ...
tgerardot14's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
574 views

The ate-eight split?

The words "ate" and "eight" are supposed to be homophones in English, yet in (thick) Hungarian, Dutch and Swedish accents, they are not homophones. As a native Hungarian-speaker, I will attest to this:...
Stephanus Tavilrond's user avatar
2 votes
4 answers
504 views

Why d͡z is not considered two consonants

Wondering why d͡z is not considered two consonants. Same with p͡f, t͡s, etc.
Lance's user avatar
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1 vote
8 answers
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Is there any proof that diphthongs exist?

I was always taught that a word contains as many syllables as it has vowels. By definition, a vowel is a sound that produces a syllable. On the other hand, in English phonology, by definition, ...
Anixx's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
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Swahili stress with two vowels in a row, how does it work?

I'm uncertain how stress works with two vowels in a row, so I used a regex to grab some words out of a small learner's-dictionary, and then make the two possible stress-patterns after each entry, ...
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