Talk:Triphthong

message: Would English [wai] (why), [wei] (way), [wau] (wow), [jei] (yay), and [wou] (woe) be considered triphthongs, or do the semivowels not count?  Xyzzyva 02:59, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
: Phonemically, in English, no. You can show this by putting a word like 'a(n)', which varies depending on which word comes next, before it: 'a way', not 'an way'. In Italian, I believe, they have diphthongs which in English would be the a sequence of semivowel and vowel, but they're considered diphthongs because when you put a word like ‘la’ before it, they become ‘l'’ e.g. l’uo’. Phonetically, I don't know.  — Felix the Cassowary 07:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: old talk

message: First, it shouldn't really say British English: I don't think those words have triphthongs in Scottish English, for example.  They're Received Pronunciation.
Also, if it's generally accepted that they're disyllabic (which I don't think it is), are they really triphthongs at all?  I'm going to remove "disyllabic" for now.--JHJ 19:42, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I was pretty sure they were disyllabic (as an Australian, which is generally considered essentially phonemically equivalent, I definitely make two syllables of ‘hour’), and that seeing as a phonetic definition of ‘syllable’ is somewhat difficult, a phonetic triphthong is essentially indistinct from a disyllabic sequence. —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 23:23, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the sonority hierarchy, sequences like [aʊə] are expected to be disyllabic, too. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 02:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  If they're disyllabic, then I don't think they're triphthongs (and neither does the first paragraph of this article); they're just a sequence of diphthong and monophthong.  Wells  says that "some people" analyse them as triphthongs, so there may be some debate about this.  Also, see the brief discussion at Talk:Received_Pronunciation#Triphthongs.  Personally (though I wouldn't necessarily expect an RP speaker to do the same as me) I distinguish higher and hire, and would consider the former to be two syllables and the latter to be one, but, on the other hand, hour feels like two syllables.--JHJ 17:10, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  RP examples 

message: One should mention that triphthongs are very imporatant in Standard Chinese (Mandarin):
* "uai" (as in "kuai") - written as "wai" when stand-alone
* "uei" (as in "gui") - written as "wei" when stand-alone, written as "ui" when preceded by a consonant
* "iao" (as in "liao") - written as "yao" when stand-alone
* "iou" (as in "liu") - written as "you" when stand-alone, written as "iu" when preceded by a consonant
: I think it's been added now. However, is it really desirable to analyze the third component of the triphthong in Mandarin as approximants? For now I'll change it to what Standard Mandarin shows. Keith Galveston (talk) 05:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Triphthongs in Chinese language 

message: In Catalan, there is feia ('s/he was doing'), creuar ('to cross'), iaia ('granma'), and these are NOT triphthongs or quadriphthongs :S, but disyllabic diphthongs (same as RP English fire, hour, plougher).
Most Romance languages have PROPER and REAL triphthongs, e.g. Portuguese, and Catalan, Spanish, Romanian, Occitan, etc.
I'll delete English triphthongs, seen there is not a source that proves this to be truth. 178.109.39.8 (talk) 00:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear 92.22.56.85: You don't know much about phonology, linguistics in general, or English spelling and grammar. Given that you're a non-native English speaker, the spelling and grammar are forgiveable, but they don't excuse your haughty and unsupportable prescriptivism or your preaching from ignorance. This is not the place to get your questions answered. Go study the science of language. And if you come back to say anything more on the subject, register and use a user id. --Thnidu (talk) 04:55, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: This article is wrong, is there any source that proves English to have triphthongs?!

message: This page is almost totally lacking in references and in-line citations.  Leaving aside Wikipedia's standards for this sort of thing, the fact that this is a somewhat tricky phonetic concept makes fixing this extra important.  I might have a go at improving this in the coming weeks, but I'm not a phonetics specialist.  I'd really value any guidance you all can give, and the input of an expert would be invaluable!
Looking forward to getting this thing kicked up a notch with you all.  TI. Gracchus (talk) 00:30, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say check out the relevant phonology pages. I know Spanish and Romanian have some well-sourced information on diphthongs and possibly triphthongs. — Æµ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 00:52, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  References and Citations 

message: Acoustically or just notationally? Secondly, why is the letter r capitalized ? --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:21, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monosyllabic triphthongs with R are optionally distinguished from sequences with disyllabic realizations