Via Cheslea F. Mayor 1 - Jogues 1.) What are diphthongs?

A diphthong (pronounced /'df/ or /'dp/; from Greek , diphthongos, literally "two sounds" or "two tones"), also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel. In most dialects of English, the words eye, hay, boy, low, and cow contain diphthongs. Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs, where the tongue doesn't move and only one vowel sound is heard in a syllable. Where two adjacent vowel sounds occur in different syllables, as in, for example, the English word re-elect, the result is described as hiatus, not as a diphthong. Diphthongs often form when separate vowels are run together in rapid speech during a conversation. However, there are also unitary diphthongs, as in the English examples above, which are heard by listeners as single-vowel sounds. (phonemes) 2.) Give the characteristics of diphthongs. Vowels are generally characterized by three different criteria: the position of the tongue in the mouth relative to the roof of the mouth (height), the position of the tongue in either the front or back of the mouth (backness), and the shape of the lips as the vowel sound is being made (roundedness). There are other things that may characterize vowels, but they are not very common in English things such as the position of the root of the tongue, for example, rarely affect English vowels, though they affect the vowels in many African languages. When vowels come together, they may either be two distinct syllables, or may merge into one syllable. When they merge, they form what are known as diphthongs. If they stay separate they are simply two monophthongs. An example of two single syllable vowels can be seen in the word triage, in which the i and the a are both pronounced on their own. An example of a diphthong can be seen in the word mouse, in which the ou part of the word obviously consists of two distinct vowels, but there is no syllabic break between the two. Diphthongs can usually be seen as having two distinct parts the nucleus, and the offglide. The nucleus of the diphthong is the vowel that is most stressed, and forms the center of the sound, while the off-glide is the vowel which seems to flow into or off of the nucleus vowel. 3.) Using the essay, I Am a Filipino, pick out 10 words that have diphthongs in them. veins same mighty wave proud eyes stout over out found