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( 11) close-front,
(12) open-front,
peu (French).
peur (French).Spoken English IIDiphthongs are, of course, symbolised by the juxtaposition of their
elements. The following are the English diphthongs: -
al aszn aisle.
au " now.
(^01) " boil.
el " veil.
ou " soul.
Diphthongs in all languages vary greatly in their constituents and
the above combinations must be understood as simply denoting
general tendencies. Thus ai does not literally imply a combination
of the a in 'father' and the i in 'bit', but merely a movement in that
direction. We may start, not with a full-back vowel, but with a
mixed one, which may move towards i, but without reaching it: in
fact the commonest pronunciation of 'aisle' may be represented
by el. In the same way ei only implies a front vowel moving up-
wards and, as a matter of fact, the starting-point may be either a
close or open e or even the a of 'man'. Indeed ei often begins with
a mixed vowel, in which case 'veil' is confounded with 'vile'.
Note that ei and ou in English supply the place of close long ee and
00, which most English people are unable to pronounce.
ii and uu are often diphthongised in a peculiar way in English, by
being made to end in the consonants y and w respectively, wiin
(ween) andfuul (fool) becoming wiyn andfowl.
Having thus laid a general foundation, we may proceed to discuss
some special modifications required in English.
As there is no short or close e or 0 in English, it is superfluous to
use & and to denote the quality of sounds whose openness is al-
ways implied by their shortness. We can, therefore, discard alto-
gether in English and employ & to denote the peculiar a in 'man',