Talk:Articulatory phonetics

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[edit] Number of diphthongs

"For example, English has 26 consonants, 12 vowels and three diphthongs, even though there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet."

I am not a linguist, but I thought most varieties of English had more than three contrasted diphthongs. Most vowel sounds in English are diphthongs rather than the steadier monophthongs.

beet, beat = /bijt/ (or /bit/) bait, bate = /bejt/ bat = /b&t/ (may be a diphthong in some accents, e.g. /bEat/) bite = /bajt/ boot = /buwt/ (or /but/) boat = /bowt/ bout = /bawt/ boy = /bOj/ few = /fju/ (represented in a variety of other ways)

That is at least five contrasted diphthongs in the standard accents!

Compare that with the contrastive monophthongs (again, vary by accent):

bit = /bIt/ bet = /bEt/ bat = /b&t/ bot = /bAt/ but = /BVt/ bought = /bOt/ (or /bAt/ in some accents) good = /gUd/

Add in possible triphthongs, and the blanket statement about English phonology, which caused this message, could only add to the confusion!

I _am_ a linguist, and you're absolutely right. English (for the sake of argument, let's say "Standard Southern British" English) has around 8 diphthongs, which can be divided into two main types: closing, and centring.

the closing diphthongs occur in words like: "boy", "cow", "high", "hay", and "hoe". The centring diphthongs in words like "hear", "there" and "tour". (Of course, in GenAmerican English, those last three are not really produced as diphthongs, but as a long/short vowel and /r/, which is why we need to be careful when talking about "English" phonemes).

Some of the examples given above, such as "beat", "bat", "boot" are not really diphthongs, but long monophthongs, which are perhaps produced with a strong "onglide" in some dialects of English. In "few", the vowel /u/ is preceded by an approximant (consonant) /j/ (as in "_y_ou"), so wouldn't really be classed as a diphthong.