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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.
A simplified diagram of Canadian raising (Rogers 2000:124).Actual starting points vary. Canadian raising (also sometimes known as English diphthong raising [1]) is an allophonic rule of phonology in many varieties of North American English that changes the pronunciation of diphthongs with open-vowel starting points.
Although the Old English diphthongs merged into monophthongs, Middle English began to develop a new set of diphthongs.Many of these came about through vocalization of the palatal approximant /j/ (usually from an earlier /ʝ/) or the labio-velar approximant /w/ (sometimes from an earlier voiced velar fricative [ɣ]), when they followed a vowel.
In an unstressed open syllable, /i/ and /u/ (including final /-u/ from earlier /-oː/) were lost when following a long syllable (i.e. one with a long vowel or diphthong, or followed by two consonants), but not when following a short syllable (i.e. one with a short vowel followed by a single consonant). [21]
The raised vowels /aɪ/ typically raises [ɐɪ], while the raised variant of /aʊ/ differs by dialects in Canada, with [ɐʊ~ʌʊ] more common in Western Canada and a fronted variant [əʊ~ɛʊ] is mostly heard in Central Canada. [6] The open vowel component of the diphthongs changes to a mid vowel ([ʌ], [ɐ], [ɛ] or [ə]).
The long vowel /ɔː/ of boat had been raised to /oː/ as a result of the Great Vowel Shift. The diphthong /aw/ found in words such as cause, law, all, salt, psalm, half, change, chamber, dance had become an open back monophthong /ɔː/ or /ɑː/. At this time, the short /ɔ/ in dog was lowered to /ɒ/ There were thus two open back monophthongs:
The long vowels /eː oː/ from the Great Vowel Shift become diphthongs /eɪ oʊ/ in many varieties of English, though not in Scottish and Northern England English. Voicing of /ʍ/ to /w/ results in the wine–whine merger in most varieties of English, aside from Scottish, Irish, Southern American, and New England English.
The diphthongs /juː/ or /ɪʊ̯/ are most commonly indicated by the spellings eu, ew, uCV (where C is any consonant and V is any vowel), ue and ui, as in feud, few, mute, cue and suit, while the historical monophthong /uː/ is commonly indicated by the spellings oo and ou, as in moon and soup.