| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| DIPHTHONG |
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| A diphthong (pronounced DIF-thawng or, frequently, DIP-thawng) is a two-part vowel sound beginning with the sound of one vowel and moving to or toward another vowel or semivowel sound within the same syllable: the words cow and joy can be described as containing diphthongs made up of vowel and semivowel (aw and oy). English borrowed two ligatures from Greek and Latin, æ and œ, and sometimes preserves them in some spellings, but American English has tended to change many of those spellings to reflect the simple vowels that have replaced the diphthongal sounds of the ligatures in their original languages. We now usually spell mediaeval, oeconomics, and oestrogen to reflect their modern English pronunciations, medieval, economics, and estrogen, although we sometimes retain the ligatures, at least in modern digraph form, in spelling the names of OEdipus (Oedipus) and AEsop (Aesop). See also DIGRAPHS. | 1 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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