# der a-Laut: A-sound/a-sound



## Whodunit

How would you translate the German word "der a-Laut" into English? I'm looking for the correct spelling:

_*the a sound
the a-sound
the A sound
the A-sound*_


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## Magg

Hmmm, I´m not quite suere about that, but I guess I would have written the *a sound*. More than using a hyphen, I would have gone for "a" or _a_.

Better wait for native explanations.
Now I´m curious, too.


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## elroy

Whodunit said:
			
		

> How would you translate the German word "der a-Laut" into English? I'm looking for the correct spelling:
> 
> _*the a sound
> the a-sound
> the A sound
> the A-sound*_



the "a" sound.

Beware, though: "a" doesn't have a single, unique sound, so such a phrase is ambiguous.  In order to specify which sound you mean, you need to insert the appropriate diacritical marks and put slashes around the letter.


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## Whodunit

elroy said:
			
		

> the "a" sound.
> 
> Beware, though: "a" doesn't have a single, unique sound, so such a phrase is ambiguous.  In order to specify which sound you mean, you need to insert the appropriate diacritical marks and put slashes around the letter.



Okay, so how would _you_ translate "der a-Laut"?


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## Jana337

The German "a" sound (called a-Laut in German).

Jana


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## elroy

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Okay, so how would _you_ translate "der a-Laut"?



As Jana said, the German "a" sound, or I would just use a phonetic indication.


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## Whodunit

elroy said:
			
		

> As Jana said, the German "a" sound, or I would just use a phonetic indication.



Okay, thank you both very much!


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## Whodunit

But what about "der e-Laut"? It's [i:] in English, that is to say ONE sound.


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## Outsider

The letter _e_ has several possible sounds in English (as in German, I believe):

1. as in _be_
2. as in _egg_
3. as in _infer_


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:
			
		

> The letter _e_ has several possible sounds in English (as in German, I believe):
> 
> 1. as in _be_
> 2. as in _egg_
> 3. as in _infer_



Of course! But they're always E's with only ONE sound, unlike the A.


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## Outsider

Oh, I see what you mean, now: it's always a simple vowel, rather than a diphtong! 
Beware, though, that some authors regard diphtongs as vowels.


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:
			
		

> Oh, I see what you mean, now: it's always a simple vowel, rather than a diphtong!
> Beware, though, that some authors regard diphtongs as vowels.



Está bem, Outsider, e obrigado mesmo assim!


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## elroy

Outsider said:
			
		

> Oh, I see what you mean, now: it's always a simple vowel, rather than a diphtong!
> Beware, though, that some authors regard diphtongs as vowels.



Of course there are diphthongs with "e" in English.

ei as in rEIn
ea as in lEAf
ee as in tEEth
ae as in archAEology
ie as in chIEf
ue as in glUE
oe as in dOE

In fact, "eo" (as in nEOn) and "eu" (as in fEUd) are also possible but I wouldn't consider them diphthongs.


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## Whodunit

elroy said:
			
		

> Of course there are diphthongs *with* "e" in English.
> 
> ei as in rEIn
> ea as in lEAf
> ee as in tEEth
> ae as in archAEology
> ie as in chIEf
> ue as in glUE
> oe as in dOE
> 
> In fact, "eo" (as in nEOn) and "eu" (as in fEUd) are also possible but I wouldn't consider them diphthongs.



Yes, "diphthongs WITH e", but I meant "e" isolated is never prounced as a diphthong.


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## elroy

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Yes, "diphthongs WITH e", but I meant "e" isolated is never prounced as a diphthong.



Are any of the other vowels??? I'm confused.  Could you give some examples?


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## Whodunit

elroy said:
			
		

> Are any of the other vowels??? I'm confused.  Could you give some examples?



What about "a", "i" and "u" which is often treated as [ju:], i.e. consonant + vowel?


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## elroy

Whodunit said:
			
		

> What about "a", "i" and "u" which is often treated as [ju:], i.e. consonant + vowel?



A consonant and a vowel is not a diphthong.

You still haven't given me an example in which one vowel is used to represent a diphthong.


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## gaer

elroy said:
			
		

> A consonant and a vowel is not a diphthong.
> 
> You still haven't given me an example in which one vowel is used to represent a diphthong.


I'm totally confused. This is what I know of as a diphthong:

a gliding monosyllabic speech sound (as the vowel combination at the end of _toy_) that starts at or near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves to or toward the position of another

A single vowel can most definitely by a diphthong, but it depends on the pronunciation of the vowel. Are we talking about the same thing? Because we seem to be talking about double vowels too.

"I", for instance, in English, glides from one sound to another:

ah-ee

Somehow I think I've totally missed the point. 

Gaer


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## elroy

gaer said:
			
		

> I'm totally confused. This is what I know of as a diphthong:
> 
> a gliding monosyllabic speech sound (as the vowel combination at the end of _toy_) that starts at or near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves to or toward the position of another
> 
> A single vowel can most definitely by a diphthong, but it depends on the pronunciation of the vowel. Are we talking about the same thing? Because we seem to be talking about double vowels too.
> 
> "I", for instance, in English, glides from one sound to another:
> 
> ah-ee
> 
> Somehow I think I've totally missed the point.
> 
> Gaer



Yes, but a diphthong *by definition * consists of exactly two vowels.  I think the confusion has resulted because we're talking about different languages here.  I think what Who was referring to was English vowels that sometimes represent diphthongs in German.  For example, the sound "i" in English is actually a diphthong in German ("ei").  However, in English it is not.  It is one vowel with that long sound.  The "y" sound at the end of the pronunciation of the long vowel is simply a phenomenon of English intonation.  For example, consider the words cane and day.  The "a" and the "ay" in the respective words are pronounced the same; English simply attaches that "y" sound to some long vowels because that's the way it's uttered.  Nevertheless, there are deviations from these tendencies.  For example, in the American South they pronunce "I" like the a in father.  It's clearly not a diphthong there, but it's no different from the "regular I."  In conclusion, I do not believe there are any single vowels that are "diphthongs" because that's simply not what a diphthong is!  They may be pronounced the same way as some diphthongs are in other languages, but in the language to which they pertain they are still vowels.

Please let me know if I have misunderstood something.  I am equally confused about what Outsider and Daniel were discussing, and I am only now trying to come up with a possible explanation for it.  Maybe they'll come along and clear it up.


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## Outsider

Elroy, you must not confuse vowel letters, _a, e, i, o, u_ with vowel sounds. The two concepts overlap, but they don't necessarily coincide.

In the same way, you must not confuse graphic diphtongs--pairs of vowel letters, or sometimes a vowel letter followed or preceded by _w_ or _y_, in English--with phonetic diphtongs--made up of a simple vowel _sound_ and a glide sound.



			
				elroy said:
			
		

> For example, consider the words cane and day.  The "a" and the "ay" in the respective words are pronounced the same; English simply attaches that "y" sound to some long vowels because that's the way it's uttered.


Or we can say that the letter _a_ in the English word _cane_ is pronounced as a diphtong [ey].


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:
			
		

> Elroy, you must not confuse vowel letters, _a, e, i, o, u_ with vowel sounds. The two concepts overlap, but they don't necessarily coincide.
> 
> In the same way, you must not confuse graphic diphtongs--pairs of vowel letters, or sometimes a vowel letter followed or preceded by _w_ or _y_, in English--with phonetic diphtongs--made up of a simple vowel _sound_ and a glide sound.
> 
> Or we can say that the letter _a_ in the English word _cane_ is pronounced as a diphtong [ey].



Correct. That was what I was getting at. Here I found the solution of our conversion:

Wikipedia in answers.com

Under the category "Wikipedia", I found the following:



> Diphthongs in English:
> 
> [aʊ] as in house
> [aɪ] as in kite
> [eɪ] as in same
> [juː] as in few (This is phonemically analyzed as a sequence of a semivowel and a monophthong.)
> [oʊ] as in hope
> [oɪ] as in join


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## gaer

Outsider said:
			
		

> Elroy, you must not confuse vowel letters, _a, e, i, o, u_ with vowel sounds. The two concepts overlap, but they don't necessarily coincide.
> 
> In the same way, you must not confuse graphic diphtongs--pairs of vowel letters, or sometimes a vowel letter followed or preceded by _w_ or _y_, in English--with phonetic diphtongs--made up of a simple vowel _sound_ and a glide sound.
> 
> Or we can say that the letter _a_ in the English word _cane_ is pronounced as a diphtong [ey].


Outsider, what you just linked and described exactly corresponds to what I have been taught. I'm going entirely by sound, not by the written representation of sounds in English.

I am very familiar with vowlels that glide from one sound to another because they are a tremendous problem in singing.

This is precisely why singers, when singing an "a" sound, in English, that corresponds to "say" will sing:

Saaaaaaah-ee, with the finall "ee" sound (as in "bee") coming right be for the end of a note. This is necessary to keep the throat from closing on the final sound, which is much more constricting!

Gaer


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## Whodunit

Well, Elroy, let me tell you will hardly find a triphthong (which does exist!) in written a written language, except for "sch" in German. But "fire" HAS a spoken triphthong.


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## elroy

Okay, I see your point.  I'm going to have to think about it, though, because "y" is not always considered a vowel sound.  Why can't the sound "ay" be considered a vowel-consonant combination and not a diphthong? 

Just throwing it out there, because I seem to have always learned that a diphthong consists of two vowels.


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## Outsider

elroy said:
			
		

> Why can't the sound "ay" be considered a vowel-consonant combination and not a diphthong?


Linguistically speaking, a diphtong is indeed a vowel-consonant combination, in which the consonant is what is called a "semivowel", or "glide". In words like "day", "say", and "heyday", the letter "y" has a consonantal sound.


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:
			
		

> Linguistically speaking, a diphtong is indeed a vowel-consonant combination, in which the consonant is what is called a "semivowel", or "glide". In words like "day", "say", and "heyday", the letter "y" has a consonantal sound.



Correct. It's the same in German: We could prounce the y like y in yes, or like ee in see. In Spanish I think it's indeed considered a vowel, isn't it?


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## Outsider

Usually, because it's part of the diphtongs _ay, ey, oy, uy, ya, ye, yo, yu_, but there's an exception: the conjunction "y". "Yo y tú", for instance, is pronounced [yo i tu].


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:
			
		

> Usually, because it's part of the diphtongs _ay, ey, oy, uy, ya, ye, yo, yu_, but there's an exception: the conjunction "y".



Yes, I actually just meant the conjuction "y" and "ya". And what about "yo" and "yuyal"?


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## Outsider

Using German spelling, that would be [jo] and [jujal].


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:
			
		

> Using German spelling, that would be [jo] and [jujal].



Yes, I'm sorry I just mixed it up.    I realized the mistake after writing, but I was too lazy to edit it.


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## elroy

Ok, this all makes sense to me.  I'm just gonna have to think a little longer about it.  I was just confused in the beginning about what you were referring to about the "e" vowel, but I think I get it now.  And as I said earlier, my explanation was only an attempt at explaining that discrepancy.  Thanks for the explanations and thought-out responses.


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