A Video All About Diphthongs

A video showcasing everything about the linguistics of diphthongs within the various languages of the world, when vowels come together and unite in a single syllable in a particular language.
Thanks to K Klein for making a cameo and voicing the British English diphthongs! Check out their channel here: / @kklein

[@joaopedrocamelo3866]

YES, I WAS JUST WONDERING HOW I COULD APPLY DIPHTHONGS ON A CONLANG, thanks a lot already

[@potatothing951]

69 likes, nice no one mess it up

[@joaopedrocamelo3866]

jokes on you @@potatothing951, i decided to like my own comment! HA!

[@EvTheBadConlanger]

@@potatothing951😢

[@Writer_Productions_Map]

they messed up

[@joaopedrocamelo3866]

@@Writer_Productions_Map tragic

[@true_perplexeus]

One of the main features of Swiss German is that the those diphthongs have not become monophthongs, so we still pronounce e.g. "lieb" like /lieb/ instead of /li:b/

[@enternalinferno]

Interesting thanks!

[@mikahamari6420]

In Finnic languages monophtongs ee, oo, öö have been preserved for example in Estonian and changed to diphtongs ie, uo and yö for example in Finnish. Estonian has also vowel õ, which often (but not always) corresponds to Finnish e. E: mees - F: mies 'man' E: soo - F: suo 'swamp' E: öö - F: yö 'night' E: võõras - F: vieras 'guest; unfamiliar, stranger'

[@Jmerzio]

DUDE. I was looking for a video about this and every single one was very slow and meant for ESL learners. So having you go blazing fast with slides so dense with info that i have to pause is a total joy. This is not sarcasm and Im very grateful for the depth

[@gotoastal]

Weird thing about Thai is that ai and oi dipthongs *can't* end in a consontant unlike the others. Oil becomes oi. Like become lie. Words seem to be forced to end at the diphthong too-like spiked becomes spy. And speakers have a very difficult time adding these sounds when speaking English. The weirdest exception is when words with ai end with m, it gets converted to am by most speakers snapping to ◌ำ (am) (which is a separate vowel for unknown reasons despite being able to use ◌ัม (am))-so time becomes Tom.

[@parmaxolotl]

Swedish monophthongized its diphthongs, then re-diphthongized them into wacky centralizing diphthongs lol

[@mollof7893]

Yea, something like this: /eː/ > /eə̯/ /ɑː/ > /ɑo̯ /uː/ > /ɪu̯/

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Yeah, as a Danish speaker I was like "Since when doesn't Swedish have diphthongs?"

[@nemetskiylager]

3:13 shoukai actually pronounced like [ɕo:kai] (with unvoiced palatal fricative), not [so:kai]

[@yesid17]

Great video as always! A couple of minor things, at 0:45 (and to a much lesser extent throughout the video) you make the common mistake of representing phones in /slashes/ instead of in [brackets]. Linguists do not always agree as to how many vowels English has or how they should be represented, but linguists do agree that phonemes are to be written in /slashes/ whereas phones (i.e., sounds, the actual pronunciation) is written in [brackets], so at 0:45-regardless of whether you represent as /boː/ /bəʊ/ boʊ/ or /bow/-the onscreen text should read "[oʊ] in General American English, but [əʊ] in British English, and I'm 80% sure I also pronounce it [əʊ]" and on the next slide, since you're giving examples of different pronunciations of and they should be in brackets-they are representing the same word, the same phoneme after all. Similarly, on the next slide with examples, you represented and as having phonemic aspirated stops-but English does not distinguish voiceless aspirated stops with voiceless unaspirated stops, they are the same phoneme, so and should start with the same unaspirated /k/ phoneme, despite the fact that it may be allophonically aspirated. Same with the /t/ in , English does not distinguish /t/ from /tʰ/ for instance, aspiration is generally predictable from the phonological environment the sound is in, so the words and could be represented /top/ and /stop/ despite the fact that phonetically they do not have the same [t] sound, [tʰɑp] vs [stɑp]. Another thing, at 2:00, you put the correct symbols on the screen, but you pronounced the rising diphthongs as two separate vowels with hiatus in between-you said "like ia and ua" but instead of [i̯a] or [u̯a]-which I would spell "yah" and "wah"-you said [i(j)a] and [u(w)a], which I would spell like "ee-ah" and "oo-ah" Since at 2:45 you're not talking about a specific language, it doesn't really make sense to represent the sounds as phonemes, especially if we consider the variation those phonemes exhibit in English, for instance in some places /au/ as in or is realized [ɐʊ], which isn't that much wider than the other two diphthongs you showed on screen, and /ae/ /ua/ and /oa/ are not generally considered to be phonemes of English. Your representations of Japanese, Swahili, Swedish, etc are good-you could have represented those with phonemes or slashes, since they are words and phonemes of specific languages, as opposed to the sounds more abstractly, it makes sense to represent them as phonemes rather than just phonemes-though for the Japanese/Swahili examples brackets would have been okay too, especially given the level of phonetic detail you incorporated into the representations. You also represented the /k/ and /ŋ/ allophony in Vietnamese well, but the vowels and the example words should be represented in brackets as well. Same for the triphthongs slide screen, most linguists agree British and American English are the same language, so the phonemic forms would be the same for both in most case, something like /fair/ and /aur/ for and since they are realized [faɪ̯ə̯] and [aʊ̯ə̯] in one variety and [faɪ̯ɚ] and [aʊ̯ɚ] in another. At any rate I'm being super nitpicky, this was a super fun and informative video as always, keep up the great work!

[@tsakeboya]

I couldn't for the life of me understand why diphthongs are any different to consecutive vowels. But I realized that that's probably because my native language is Greek, where you can't have two consecutive vowel sounds in a syllable.

[@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics]

I find it interesting to see how diphthongs and long vowels in languages such as Czech and Slovakian are closely related. I have in mind one example among many others, of a former long "o" [ɔː] that evolved into a diphthong [u̯ɔ] in Czech and Slovakian. It stayed like that in Slovakian (and is written "ô") but evolved once again into a long vowel in Czech, this time a "u" [uː] (written "ů", the little circle above is a reminiscence of the old "o" in the pronunciation). And the long "o" (written "ó") still exists in Czech and Slovakian, but only in loanwords. If you see one, you can be 100% sure the words have a foreign origin.

[@2712animefreak]

Polish seems to have had a similar development as Czech except that it then lost vowel length distinction. Hence pronounced /u/ while all other accented vowel letters just disappeared.

[@Rozum-Razum_Slavic-linguistics]

@@2712animefreak yes, you're right! I'm in a process of working on a video about one type of vowel length in Slavic languages, but it'll still take quite a lot of time before it is released!

[@xXJ4FARGAMERXx]

I REFUUUUSE to believe that FIRE is one syllable. It's CLEARLY two. Fa-jer. Fa. jer. Or if you're speaking without Rs, Fa-jɐ. Fa. jɐ. It's two.

[@hengsikai2862]

In traditional Received Pronunciation, it's a single syllable.

[@zak3744]

It's not just hyper-traditional RP where those words are monosyllabic either. Off the top of my head, if you think of heavily Estuarised accents you'll often hear a "firing squad" being a /fɑ:rɪŋ skwɔd/ or an "hourly rate" as something like an /æ:lij rɛjt/ with distinct long monophthongs (I write /æ:/ for the latter because I think it's neither the /a/ TRAP vowel nor the /ɛ/ DRESS vowel, but somewhere in the middle nearer a typical US /æ/ TRAP vowel). I'm sure there will probably be other examples in other accents too!

[@hengsikai2862]

@@zak3744 Yes, but those are examples of monophthongisation. I believe OP was talking about whether it was a diphthong + schwa sequence as opposed to a triphthong.

[@zak3744]

@@hengsikai2862 Oh absolutely. Both examples of monosyllabic "fire", just different ways of getting there!

[@angeldude101]

It's either 2 syllables or a triphthong. /fajɚ/ and /hajɚ/. People tend to get really confused by English when they don't understand syllabic consonants and r-colored vowels. For example: /fajɫ̩/ and /ruwɫ̩/. If those ls are syllabic, it's a glide between two syllables. It they aren't, it's just a normal consonant at the end of the syllable.

[@junirenjana]

4:15 Syllabic are present orthographically in Indonesian (e.g. , , etc) but they are phonemically considered as realizations of monopthongs + semivowel codas (/aj aw uj ej oj/).

[@LukeRanieri]

An absolutely beautiful wonderful summary, thanks!

[@HoneyBadgerLikesYou]

Nice video. I think you went at a better pace than your Japanese one so it was easier to follow, and I felt the logical progression from topic to topic was sensible. I also learned a good bit about diphthongs, so thanks!

[@KeesGoedegebuur]

It must be my age, but I have to watch your videos twice, to listen to you and to read the screens.

[@higorribeiro8318]

3:44 a interesting thing is that, in Brazilian Portuguese, /ei/ and /ou/ are been pronounced as short /e/ and /o/ in informal speech. I never saw Portuguese people doing that though

[@higorribeiro8318]

@@oioimati wow, thanks for the amazing explanation 😃👏🏼!

[@aaronmyers6686]

4:01 "Most languages with diphthongs don't allow them to be followed by coda consonants" Wait, really? I've never noticed this, and it feels to me like it'd be very easy (to my subconsciously English-biased ear) to pronounce a coda after a diphthong, as you would with a monophthong.

[@yanwato9050]

non syllabic vowels are often treated like consonants (semivowels), so it's basically just disallowing syllable final consonant clusters

[@xXJ4FARGAMERXx]

try to pronounce fire but in one syllable. That's what it feels to other languages to try to say a diphthong and a consonant in the same syllable

[@aaronmyers6686]

Ok, fair, but what about a word like "fight"? It's pretty much the same as "fire" except for the coda consonant, but no one (natively, at least) pronounces it "fai-yeet" like they'd pronounce "fai-yer". So then I guess it depends on the quality of the consonant, maybe whether it's an obstruent or nasal stop (cf. "fine") vs. a sonorant.

[@angeldude101]

@@xXJ4FARGAMERXx With "fire" the problem isn't ending with a consonant, but rather that the /r/ itself is acting as a vowel/nucleus. /fajɚ/. It has 2 syllables because there are two vowels with a glide between them. If you do say "fire" as 1 syllable, it's as a triphthong. "Fight" meanwhile still has the diphthong, but no next syllable to glide to, so it's just /fajt/ with one syllable with a consonant after the diphthong.

[@xenonx.4172]

I feel like maybe there is another reason: languages (especially syllable-timed languages) tend to have syllables with roughly the same length and adding a coda consonant after a diphthong will just make the syllable overlong

[@FairyCRat]

I wasn't ready for K Klein doing an RP.

[@farhanputrariantono930]

In Indonesian, the dipthongs "AI" can be palatalized into "E",so "Cabai" sometimes pronounced "Cabe". And "AU" can turn into "O", so "Australia" pronounced "Ostralia" or "Ostrali" for short.

[@gtc239]

Yup, Indonesian have both diphthongs and consecutive vowels interestingly. Compare: tau vs kau /ta.u/ vs /kau̯/

[@sponge1234ify]

@@gtc239 A note about that; "Tau" is technically nonstandard, and we rarely use that form for conjugating it as a verb. The more proper form is "Tahu", but there's also another word which we borrowd from, like, Eastern Uighur or something, that's also spoken and spelt like that. So to differentiate the both we often use the first one in speech.

[@gtc239]

@@sponge1234ify I know about that mate, i'm native myself but i just showed them for showing the contrast, which i know "kau" is often monophthongised to "ko" in casual speech.

[@naufalzaid7500]

@@gtc239 What's also interesting is that for words where consecutive vowels are found, sometimes, an alternative diphthongal pronunciation is also commonly heard. E.g. while 'tau' and 'bau' are commonly pronounced as the disyllabic [ta.u] and [ba.u], they're also commonly pronounced as the monosyllabic [tau̯] and [bau̯] with the diphthongs. (This is from my experience as a Malay speaker in Malaysia. I'm not sure if the same could be said for Indonesian)

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Mate, Aussies say it as "O-stray-lya", though dropping the 'l' isn't uncommon.

[@julian.16]

Would you talk about the northern cities vowel shift, in the US?

[@LingoLizard]

Ask Jan Misali to ask me lol

[@tomasbeltran04050]

@@LingoLizard what

[@StickRaccoon]

@@LingoLizard jan Misali* /hj

[@apmoy70]

In Modern Greek the ancient diphthongs have undergone monophthongization thus we have: (Ancient Greek > Modern Greek) /ai̯/ > /e̞/ /ei̯/ > /i/ /oi̯/ > /i/ /yi̯/ > /i/ Hence the many /i/ in the language (a phenomenon called iotakism, i.e the merging of the pronunciation of some diphthongs with iota /i/). In some cases the diphthong /yi̯/ has undergone semivowelization and then frication e.g Ancient Greek υἱός /hyi̯ós/ (son) > */jiós/ > Modern Greek γιός /ʝó̞s/

[@NFSl0]

I think absence or presense of diphthongs in language depends on linguistic tradition in that language. For example, according to theory, there is no diphthongs in Russian language, but there are words pronounced май [maɪ̯] and even яйцо [ɪ̯ɪɪ̯ˈt͡so] clearly with diphthongs. The last word isn't pronounced like [jijˈt͡so]. The problem is that phonologically these are not diphthongs, because it's considered there is [j] sound, but not vowel.

[@TheAsaber]

When I weak up, I'll see this video:)))

[@osasunaitor]

I think tripthongs are more common than what it is indicated here. Both my native languages have them. Spanish (e.g. _cambiáis,_ "you change", /kam.'ßiais/) and Basque (e.g. _haiei,_ "to them", /'a.iei/)

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

BTW, Slavic languages dont have diphthongs and triphthongs. I think they only have glides and semi-vowels but not true diphthongs

[@BobbyBermuda1986]

I believe it would be *tetraphthong to keep the word fully Greek

[@akye_tot1816]

Nice video! But, how do I define a syllable? Is it completely "the view of the speakers" or is there any morphological, phonetic, audible, mechanical, pneumatic or anything really, other component? Without a solid definition of syllable, all the arguments about if it's a diphthong or two vowels kinda melt apart into an uncertain blob of linguistic ambiguity....... (I'm already melting on the [u̯/w] [i̯/j] stuff)

[@mirandaa1464]

Hi there! Syllables are defined by a nucleus sound with high sonority, typically a vowel, which can have consonant sounds on either side (onset and coda). The nucleus plus any coda consonants are called the rhyme ('cause matching the ending is how you rhyme in English). Try clapping out different words with different syllable counts, and listing words that rhyme to get a feel for it! You can also look up a syllable structure chart to help you. Different languages have different rules for how many consonants are allowed on either side of a nucleus, or even what a nucleus can be (vowels, liquids, fricatives, you name it), but a syllable is a definable linguistic feature, not just a "view of the speaker" phenomenon. Hope this helped!

[@isaacbruner65]

0:29 I think you meant to pronounce the middle word as the verb bow (rhymes with how) but instead pronounced it as the noun bow (rhymes with no) which is also a diphthong, but not the one shown on screen.

[@ncliffordjr]

K Klein cameo 😳

[@wrenisprobablyb0red]

Wow! Your pfp is really adorable

[@ncliffordjr]

@@wrenisprobablyb0red thank you!

[@queerwizard]

So there is this choral piece called Mouyayoum. What would you call that?

[@alephomega955]

If I remember correctly, there is a critically-endangered upper German language called Gottscheerish with tetraphthongs in it.

[@NFSl0]

Are there diphthongs like a̯i or a̯u? Closing rising?

[@falliblefalinks7239]

Are there any diphthongs in UwU?

[@angeldude101]

Yes. /u ͡wu/

[@alexakalennon]

What s the language with the most and the least sounds?

[@OscarMSmithMusic]

How would you analyse the word "rail"? Two syllables? Or a triphthong? Rei(y)əl (sorry I don't know proper IPA conventions)

[@notwithouttext]

0:43 geoff lindsey says in most accents, /u:/ is actually a diphthong [ʉw] (although the difference might not be as pronounced, it is there)

[@notwithouttext]

1:00 these are actually /ɪjɔn/ or /ɪjɑn/ /mjʉwzɪjəm/ /kəntɪnjʉwəm/

[@notwithouttext]

so no consecutive vowels

[@zak3744]

@@notwithouttext They're still two vowel sounds in two different syllables though, aren't they? It's just that museum has the diphthong /ij/ in one syllable followed by /ə/ in the next syllable, rather than a monophthongal /i:/ followed by /ə/ in the next syllable. Monophthong or diphthong, it's still a vowel. When we write /ij/ or /ʉw/ or similar for those diphthongs, we're describing a single phoneme, not two separate ones, right?

[@notwithouttext]

@@zak3744 yes they are, but the video is talking about vowels DIRECTLY NEXT TO EACH OTHER. some accents such as mine have that, like in drawing /drɑ:ɪŋ/

[@notwithouttext]

@@zak3744 also i think vowels in the video are referring to phonetic vowels, not phonemic ones

[@zulmuw]

I realized in your videos you often mention Indonesian, are you learning/you learned Indonesian?

[@LingoLizard]

I’ve learned a decent amount of Indonesian, a lot of basic/intermediate grammar and a few hundred vocabulary words. I often mention for no real conscious reason, but it may be because I’m more familiar with it, and it’s a widely spoken but not very talked about language

[@xolang]

@@LingoLizard Let İ know if you have any questions about İndonesian. İ also happen to speak a Malay/İndonesian dialect used in the northern part of Sulawesi, which phonologically is quite interesting.

[@captainyulef5845]

I was wondering this too, wanting to learn it myself

[@myspleenisbursting4825]

​@@xolang manado ya

[@kirilvelinov7774]

We have letters for /ei/ and /ou/ Ei(long E) Ou(long O)

[@xolang]

Romanian has "ploaie" (rain). İdk if that counts as a fourthong though. Anyway, Romanian has an interesting tendency to diphthongize O and E in certain situations. E.g. "our" can be nostru noastrã (too lazy to find the diacritic) noştri noastre "this" acest aceastã aceşti aceste

[@TTorkyy]

I saw this video in my feed and was really confused seeing the outline of Ohio. I was like there is no way it's what I think it is xd

[@kirilvelinov7774]

In English Cafe is pronounced Kafey and Beaux is pronounced Bow

[@gabrieldogilev1549]

5:36 Oaia aia e a iei eu i-o iau

[@martinomasolo8833]

Ill just say this: 🇮🇹 CUOIAIO

[@alessandroculatti1613]

That's pronounced /kwo.jaː.jo/, technically it doesn't even have a diphthong.

[@marieobst8850]

Japanese does de-facto have diphthongs thought, it doesn't formally but speakers do pronounce, let's say the word for love which is Ai as /ai/ not as /a.i/. I In formal contexts and singing each mora might be pronounced as its own syllable but not in common speech, same goes for the syllabic /n/

[@GwenWinterheart]

yeah! i was especially thinking of colloquial spoken 'no' like 'いえいえ/ie ie', earlier in the video and was surprised by the claim there aren't any in japanese ^^;

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

Not true at all. Japanese doesn't have diphthongs

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

The word "Ai" is 2 separate vowel sounds (moras) that dont combine into one so that doesn't count as a diphthong

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

​@@GwenWinterheartNo , compared to languages like Spanish and Italian, Japanese doesn't have diphthongs at all

[@matthewdoiron9696]

I see WHAT YOU did THERE

[@rickeyrat9132]

quadraphthongs: only in Ohio

[@amandafournier9255]

Why is ohio on the titlescreen

[@kristianl7797]

3:39 English does that when pronouncing words from Spanish and French

[@BeneathTheBrightSky]

4:22 air=water

[@larsswig912]

a false friend! word that looks or sounds the same in two different languages but mean two completely different things. besides this one, my other favourite is between English and Russian - Eng: preservative Rus: презерватив (prezervativ) the russian word means "condom".

[@thalianero1071]

I think I pronounce English o as [əou] instead of [ou]

[@thefateshavewarned]

One pedantic correction here. The word quadrophthongs should actually be tetraphthongs… Because Greek.

[@loftrooper3654]

Some dialects in the south of Sweden still have diphtongs. Example, yes = ja. But yes = jia

[@cheerful_crop_circle]

Slavic languages dont have diphthongs at all btw

[@Crushery]

4:40 meanwhile australian:

[@kirilvelinov7774]

English has quadrophthong ough,which is pronounced differently:ow,aw,uh...

[@LucaioSuper]

5:16 Uruguaya maybe?

[@nemetskiylager]

That's not a quadrophthong because "y" pronounced like [ʝ], that's voiced palatatal sibilant fricative, so it's consonant.

[@LucaioSuper]

@@nemetskiylager I used castillian because i thought it was the same as in portuguese and because castillian is more popular. Portuguese is my native language and Uruguaia has the "i" sounding like [j] (or [i̯]/[ɪ̯] depending of your prefered transcription). I wasn't 100% fluent in castillian at the time i made this comment.

[@MarcHarder]

Gage óge eer äger ăp? /jɪ̯ɔʏ̯ə i̯uu̯ə ɔɪ̯ɐ eɪ̯ɐ ɐp/ Do eyes round up eggs first?

[@mew2knight337]

mophtongs enjoyers be like: 🗿

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

I find it weird when some english speakers say /mei:/ rather than /mi:/

[@scorbiot]

aeiou

[@IINGHII]

Ohio was a clickbait for me 😂

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

You very much said /ua/ as 2 consecutive vowels not a dipthong. As a latvietis whos language doesnt have an /o/ and uses the letter o to mean our /ua/ dipthong I really dont fell well when writing it as ua because its not 2 different vowels its just 1 sound. Try saying wa wa wa wa, like in wow, and then round it some more, when you say /ua/ as a dipthong people should second guess how to write it.

[@kollinbyrne7150]

gonna admit i only clicked on this video because it had ohio in the thumbnail but i don't regret it

[@jan_Eten]

NOT OHIO

[@MooImABunny]

houoouoOouOouuoo

[@rextanglr4056]

/eu/ is best diphthong. now go argue in the comments.

[@noibat9112]

Ohio

[@kiro9291]

broke: /ˈdɪpθɔŋ/ woke: /ˈdɪfθɔŋ/

[@eiriansaikou1158]

gigachad: /dipʰtʰoŋ/

[@mollof7893]

/dɪp̪͡ft̪͡θɔŋ/

[@locomotivetrainstation6053]

​@@eiriansaikou1158 The f sound is f not ph The θ sound is θ not th

[@eiriansaikou1158]

@@locomotivetrainstation6053 that's literally how i pronounce it. And in greek it is pronounced like that