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Narrow diphthongs are the ones that end with a vowel which on a vowel chart is quite close to the one that begins the diphthong, for example Northern Dutch [eɪ], [øʏ] and [oʊ]. Wide diphthongs are the opposite – they require a greater tongue movement, and their offsets are farther away from their starting points on the vowel chart.
Note that some words contain an ae which may not be written æ because the etymology is not from the Greek -αι-or Latin -ae-diphthongs. These include: In instances of aer (starting or within a word) when it makes the sound IPA [ɛə]/[eə] (air). Comes from the Latin āër, Greek ἀήρ. When ae makes the diphthong / eɪ / (lay) or / aɪ ...
Derivational suffixes and the second elements of compound words appear to display a wider range of vowel contrasts than inflectional suffixes: for example, a diphthong can be seen in the second syllable of the word spelled arleas [161] 'honorless' derived from the morphemes ār 'honor' and lēas 'devoid of, bereft of' (as a suffix, '-less ...
Also, the Early West Saxon diphthongs ie and īe developed into what is known as "unstable i", merging into /y(ː)/ in Late West Saxon. For further detail, see Old English diphthongs. All of the remaining Old English diphthongs were monophthongised in the early Middle English period: see Middle English stressed vowel changes.
However, according to professor Jürgen Handke, for some time, there was a phonetic split between words with the vowel /iː/ and the diphthong /əi/, in words where the Middle English /iː/ shifted to the Modern English /aɪ/. For an example, high was pronounced with the vowel /iː/, and like and my were pronounced with the diphthong /əi/. [19]
The long diphthongs, also known as 'double vowels', are phonemically sequences of a free vowel and a non-syllabic equivalent of /i/ or /u/: /iu, ui, oːi, eu, ɑːi/. Although both /iu/ and /eu/ are typically pronounced as [iu], they are spelled differently; the former as ieu , and the latter as eeu .
In addition to the seven core vowels, in a number of words of foreign origin (predominantly French, but also German) the mid front rounded vowel /ø/ (rounded Romanian /e/; example word: bleu /blø/ 'light blue') and the mid central rounded vowel /ɵ/ (rounded Romanian /ə/; example word: chemin de fer /ʃɵˌmen dɵ ˈfer/ 'Chemin de Fer') have been preserved, without replacing them with any ...
Adding to this, the two vowels have different phonological distribution; for example, /ə/ can occur word-finally, while /ʏ/ (along with other lax vowels) cannot. In addition, the word-final allophone of /ə/ is a close-mid front vowel with some rounding , a sound that is similar to /ʏ/. [24] [43]