Monophthong

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A monophthong (

hiatus
, where two vowels are next to each other in different syllables. A vowel sound whose quality does not change over the duration of the vowel is called a pure vowel.

Sound changes

The conversions of monophthongs to diphthongs (diphthongization), and of diphthongs to monophthongs (monophthongization), are major elements of language change and are likely the cause of further changes.

In some languages, due to monophthongization, graphemes that originally represented diphthongs now represent monophthongs.

See also


References

  1. Perseus Project