VOWELS AND DIPHTHONGS

VOWELS

•       A vowel is a type of sound for which there is no closure of the throat or mouth at any point where vocalization occurs.

•       In English, there are five letters which always represent a vowel when written: a, e, i, o, and u. These five letters represent more than five vowel sounds, however, depending on the word, or if they are combined with other vowels.

X-rays of Daniel Jones' [i, u, a, ɑ].

                The following list goes from the high front vowels through to the low back vowel and ends with diphthongs.

/i:/            see, eat, key                         /    /      raw, fall, caught

/i /            hit, myth, lip                                    /    /      hot, not, pot

/e /           pen, said, dead                     /a:/       father, far, are

/ae/           sat, black, pat                                   /ei/       make, weight, play

/    /          above, sofa, but                   /aw/      cow, loud, house

/    /          blood, tough, cut                  /     /     boy, void, toy

/u:/           move, two, glue                   /ou/      home, though, loan

/u /           put, book, could                  /ai/       try, like, find

                /a/ is always pronounced like the English /a/ in ‘far’;  ‘car’;  ‘jar’

Example:

•       saya – I

•       apa – what

•       kaya – rich

•       makan – eat

•       tanam – plant

                /i/ is always pronounced like the English /ee/ in ‘bee’;  ‘teeth’

                Example:

•       ini – this

•       sini – here

•       gila – crazy

•       kami – we

•       indah – beautiful

Vowel /e/ Has Two Different Sounds

Letter (Grapheme) and sound (phoneme) are 2 (two) different things. The following examples show different ways to pronounce the letter /e/ for different words in  Indonesian language.

Example:

•       Saya lebih senang mobil sédan ketimbang pickup.

•       Mendengar berita yang menyedihkan itu ia menangis tersedu-sedan.

•       Nénék datang nanti sore.

Vowel /o/ Has Two Different Sounds

•       The first one is like the English /o/ in ‘cold’; ‘bold’

•       The second one is pronounced like the English /o/ in ‘hot’;  ‘shot’

DIPHTHONGS

•       A diphthong literally "two sounds" or "two tones", also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syillable .

•       Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel. In most dialects of english, the words eye, hay, boy, low, and cow contain diphthongs.

Types of Diphthongs

Falling and Rising

•       Falling (or descending) diphthongs start with a vowel quality of higher prominence (higher pitch or volume) and end in a semivowel with less prominence, like [aɪ̯] in eye,.

•       Rising (or ascending) diphthongs begin with a less prominent semivowel and end with a more prominent full vowel, similar to the [ja] in yard.

Closing / Rising Dipthongs:
ei ou ai au

                                 Example:

•       / ei /               make, break, steak, weight, pain, table, rain, brain

•       / ou /             home, only, go, fold, grown, won’t, most,          load

•       /ai /                like, high, height, night, child, sky, drive, died

•       /au /               owl, house, cow, blouse, crown, shout, out, stout

•       /  i /               soil, join, toil, annoy, moist, coin, boil spoil

Centralizing Dipthongs:
i e u

Example:

•       /   /       ear, hear, near, dear, deer, fear, here,              peer

•       /   /       air, fair, hair, bare, scare, glare, mare,              wear

•       /   /       poor, sure, fuel, duel, jewel, fewer,                 fuel, cruel

•       /   /       four, more, door, shore, your, roar,                 tore, snore