Re: Is "oo" a diphthong?

From: William R Ward (bill_at_wards.net)
Date: 01/11/05 

Date: 11 Jan 2005 14:14:38 -0800

richw@richw.org (Rich Wales) writes:
> I believe the best answer would be that it depends on the speaker's
> regional accent. Some pronounce it as a diphthong, others don't.
>
> To give another example, I've heard Australian speakers pronounce
> /u/ as a diphthong that starts with an unrounded back vowel and
> glides to an unrounded front vowel (i.e., the tongue moves forward
> while the lips retain a lax, unrounded, half-open position).

Yes. In some accents, especially Antipondean ones, it seems that just
about every vowel sounds like a diphthong or a triphthong.

[...]
> Conversely, many Spanish speakers are likely to have great difficulty
> distinguishing word-initial /j/ and /dZ/ in English words (e.g., "you"
> vs. "Jew"), because, to them, these two sounds are interchangeable --
> they sound the same (to a Spanish speaker), just as the French "tu"
> and "tout" sound the same to Mark.

Many people from India have similar problems with /dZ/ and /z/ in my
experience.

--Bill. 

-- 
William R Ward               bill@wards.net             http://bill.wards.net
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