Speech Work: Introduction to Diphthongs: /eɪ/ and /aɪ/

What is a Diphthong?

A diphthong is a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves towards another.

Diphthongs are generally described in terms of their direction, or movement within the vowel space. Their articulation involves a glide from one vowel quality to the other.

Diphthong /eɪ/

This is the diphthong used in day, bait, and fail. There is no identifiable break between /e/ and /i/. In the production of the diphthong, the first part is usually articulated with great energyEnergy is the ability to do work. Energy exists in several forms such as heat, kinetic or mechanical energy, light, potential energy, and electrical energy. Units of Energy: The SI unit... More which gradually gets reduced with the glide towards the final part of the diphthong.

/eɪ/ – has different common spelling symbols which are listed below:

“a” – hale, gate, bale, sale, take, way, agent, change

“ai” – paid, tail, laid, maid, raid

“ay” – tray, may, bray, slay, play, pray

“ei” – eight, vein, freight, weight

“ey” – prey, they

“ea” – great, steak

Note: at times diphthong /eɪ/ is pronounced as /e/ which is quite wrong and must be avoided.

The correct pronunciation of sound /eɪ/ is correctly spelt in the following contrast.

Sound Contrast: /e/ & /eɪ/

/e/	/eɪ/
bet	Bate
pen	Pain
Led	Laid
Met	Mate
Sell	Sail

Diphthong /aɪ/

The articulation of this sound starts with a sound that has the quality of /a/ but the quality changes with a gradual glide toward /i/. The opening of the mouth gets smaller with the closing movement of the lower jaw following the glide towards /i/.

/aɪ/ – is represented with the following spelling symbols.

“i” – time, write, life

“y” – type, tyrant, my, try, crucify

“uy” – buy, guy

“igh” – high, might

“eigh” – height

“ei” – either

“ai” – aisle