Triphthong


In phonetics, a triphthong is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third. While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulator position, diphthongs have two, and triphthongs three.

Examples

First segment is the nucleus

English

In British Received Pronunciation, monosyllabic triphthongs with R are optionally distinguished from sequences with disyllabic realizations:
As and become and respectively before, all instances of and are words with the suffix "-er".
In Cockney, triphthongal realizations of are possible and regarded as "very strongly Cockney". Among these, the triphthongal realization of occurs most commonly. There is not a complete agreement about their distribution: according to, they "occur in sentence-final position", whereas according to, these are "most common in final position".

Bernese German

has the following triphthongs:
has the following triphthongs:
The Northern Bavarian triphthongs have evolved from combinations of former long vowels or diphthongs from the Middle High German period and vocalized r.

Second segment is the nucleus

Some Portuguese triphthongs appear in places where some speakers can break the first segment to form a hiatus, and as such they are deemed as non-triphthongs by standard, although many or most speakers produce them as such :
In addition, phonetic diphthongs are formed in most Brazilian Portuguese dialects by the vocalization of in the syllable coda, as well as by yodization of vowels preceding and or their syllable-final pre-consonantal allophones and, thus if these consonants precede diphthongs, it is likely that a triphthong will form:
Romanian:
Spanish:
Vietnamese: