Tuesday 9 December 2014

KIND OF VOWELS – MONOPHTHONG & DIPHTHONG

What is Monophthong?

Monophthong is simply a vowel. The word monophthong comes from the old Greek language. Mono means one or single, and the -phthong means sound or tone. The word monophthong shows that a vowel is spoken with exactly one tone and one mouth position. For example, when you say “teeth”, then while you are creating the sound of the “ee”, nothing changes for that sound.

What is Diphthong?

A Diphthong is a vowel that a person has to move his or her mouth into two different positions to make. Diphthong comes from the old Greek language. Di means two or double, while the part -phthong means sound or tone, It is a vowel where two different vowel qualities can be heard. For examples are: waist, die, noise, road, house, fierce, bear, sure. Each of these is a different vowel sound.

The Difference between Monophthong and Diphtong

A monophthong is a simple vowel sound that a person does not have to move his mouth to make, like the “oo” sound in “book.” In a diphthong, the person combines two different monophthongs, as with the “oi” sound in the word “oil.” The person starts with the mouth in the position to make an “o” sound, then quickly moves the mouth to make a hard “e” sound. Another example is the “ou” sound in the word “house.” The mouth starts out making a sound like the soft “a” sound in “flat,” then moves to make the a hard “oo” sound like the one in “boots.“

The main difference is that a monophthong is a phoneme that consists of only one (“mono” means one) vowel sound and a diphthong is a phoneme consisting of two (“di” means two) vowel sounds that are “connected” or “linked” to each other.

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