A diphthong, also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel. In most varieties of English, the phrase "no highway cowboy" has five distinct diphthongs, one in every syllable.
The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by the Great Vowel Shift, as well as more recent developments in some dialects such as the cot–caught merger.
The close and mid-height front vowels of English have undergone a variety of changes over time and often vary by dialect.
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions and so fewer vowel phonemes occur before than in other positions of a word.
Most dialects of modern English have two close back vowels: the near-close near-back rounded vowel found in words like foot, and the close back rounded vowel found in words like goose. The STRUT vowel, which historically was back, is often central as well. This article discusses the history of these vowels in various dialects of English, focusing in particular on phonemic splits and mergers involving these sounds.
English in Southern England is the collective set of different dialects and accents of Modern English spoken in Southern England.
North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken North American English —what are commonly known simply as "regional accents". Though studies of regional dialects can be based on multiple characteristics, often including characteristics that are phonemic, phonetic, lexical (vocabulary-based), and syntactic (grammar-based), this article focuses only on the former two items. North American English includes American English, which has several highly developed and distinct regional varieties, along with the closely related Canadian English, which is more homogeneous geographically. American English and Canadian English have more in common with each other than with varieties of English outside North America.
Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants.
In the history of English phonology, there have been many diachronic sound changes affecting vowels, especially involving phonemic splits and mergers.
Dutch phonology is similar to that of other West Germanic languages, especially Afrikaans and West Frisian.
Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong, a type of vowel shift. It is also known as ungliding, as diphthongs are also known as gliding vowels. In languages that have undergone monophthongization, digraphs that formerly represented diphthongs now represent monophthongs. The opposite of monophthongization is vowel breaking.
Barbadian or Bajan English is a dialect of the English language as used by Barbadians (Bajans) and by Barbadian diasporas.
Afrikaans has a similar phonology to other West Germanic languages, especially Dutch.
This article aims to describe the phonology and phonetics of central Luxembourgish, which is regarded as the emerging standard.
The distinction between rhoticity and non-rhoticity is one of the most prominent ways in which varieties of the English language are classified. In rhotic accents, the sound of the historical English rhotic consonant,, is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic accents, speakers no longer pronounce in postvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. For example, in isolation, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the words hard and butter as /ˈhɑːrd/ and /ˈbʌtər/, but a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the sound and pronounces them as /ˈhɑːd/ and /ˈbʌtə/. When an r is at the end of a word but the next word begins with a vowel, as in the phrase "better apples," most non-rhotic speakers will preserve the in that position since it is followed by a vowel in this case.
This article covers the phonology of the Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect, a variety of Getelands spoken in Orsmaal-Gussenhoven, a village in the Linter municipality.
Weert dialect or Weert Limburgish is the city dialect and variant of Limburgish spoken in the Dutch city of Weert alongside Standard Dutch. All of its speakers are bilingual with standard Dutch. There are two varieties of the dialect: rural and urban. The latter is called Stadsweerts in Standard Dutch and Stadswieërts in the city dialect. Van der Looij gives the Dutch name buitenijen for the peripheral dialect.
Port Talbot English (PTE) is a variety of Welsh English spoken in Port Talbot, generally by the working class.
Abercraf English is a dialect of Welsh English, primarily spoken in the village of Abercraf located in the far south of Powys.
The phonology of the Maastrichtian dialect, especially with regards to vowels is quite extensive due to the dialect's tonal nature.
