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A centering diphthong is one that begins with a more peripheral vowel and ends with a more central one, such as [ɪə̯], [ɛə̯], and [ʊə̯] in Received Pronunciation or [iə̯] and [uə̯] in Irish. Many centering diphthongs are also opening diphthongs ([iə̯], [uə̯]). Diphthongs may contrast in how far they open or close.
In Romanian, it represents the diphthong /e̯a/ as in beată ('drunk female'). In Irish, ea represents /a/ between a slender and a broad consonant. In Scottish Gaelic, ea represents /ʲa/, /ɛ/ or /e/ between a slender and a broad context, depending on context or dialect. In Old English, it represents the diphthong /æɑ̯/.
Diphthongs are typically specified with a non-syllabic diacritic, as in ui̯ or u̯i , or with a superscript for the on- or off-glide, as in uⁱ or ᵘi . Sometimes a tie bar is used: u͜i , especially when it is difficult to tell if the diphthong is characterized by an on-glide or an off-glide or when it is variable. Notes
In Old English, two forms of harmonic vowel breaking occurred: breaking and retraction and back mutation.. In prehistoric Old English, breaking and retraction changed stressed short and long front vowels i, e, æ to short and long diphthongs spelled io, eo, ea when followed by h or by r, l + another consonant (short vowels only), and sometimes w (only for certain short vowels): [3]
A short diphthong had the same length as a short single vowel, and a long diphthong had the same length as a long single vowel. [125] As with monophthongs, their length was not systematically marked in Old English manuscripts, but is inferred from other evidence, such as a word's etymological origins or the pronunciation of its descendants.
Late Old English (Anglian) Early Middle English Late Middle English Early Modern English Modern English Example (Old and Modern English forms given) [1] æġ, ǣġ
The dictionary uses a broad transcription rather than a narrow one. For example, the long o vowel of "toe", which is a diphthong in open syllables in most American accents, is represented by the single symbol o , rather than oʊ as it would be represented in a narrow transcription.
Some languages do not have diphthongs, except sometimes in rapid speech, or they have a limited number of diphthongs but also numerous vowel sequences that cannot form diphthongs and so appear in hiatus. That is the case for Nuosu, Bantu languages like Swahili, and Lakota. An example is Swahili eua 'purify' with three syllables.