Words & WritingGreek → English
Diphthong
/ˈdɪfθɒŋ/noun
A vowel that glides from one quality to another inside a single syllable.
The Greek roots
δίς
dís
twice, two
φθόγγος
phthóngos
sound, voice
Literally: “two sounds”
The story of the word
The Greek name says two sounds, not two letters, and φθόγγος is a noise uttered, from φθέγγομαι, to make a sound. English took the word through Latin and French in the fifteenth century, spelling it diptonge, and Renaissance scribes restored the ph to show its Greek parentage. The restoration never reached most speakers, who still say dipthong.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
monophthongtriphthongapophthegmdilemma
In a sentence
The vowel in price is a diphthong that starts near the back of the mouth and ends near the front.
Northern speakers flatten the diphthong until it is nearly one sound.