Diphthongs

In SBE there are 8 diphthong phonemes. Diphthongs are glides. They differ from vowels in being unstable, i.e. the individual sound has an initial phase that is different from the rest. To simplify we say that the sound starts in one vowel position but glides into another. SBE diphthongs have a much more dominant first element than second: the glide is sometimes quite short (in the direction of another vowel sound); in slow speech the glide tends to become longer. There are 5 rising diphthongs, and 3 centring diphthongs. For the sake of clarity, the diagrams are set up with 4 diphthongs each. Click the individual symbol (button) the get a discription of that sound, or click Next to follow the course structure.