Validity sheet

Papers containing this paper are titled

" Describing Consonants, Vowels, and Diphthongs "

Arrange by:

1. Arsy Zahwa
2. Nisa Nurfadila
3. Taufikah Anisa R
4. Wafi Fazri Zulfiqar

Ciamis, November 2019

Lecturer of Phonetics and Phonology

i
 Preface

Praise our gratitude to Allah. because of His blessings, grace, and gifts, the
making of a paper entitled "Describing Consonant, Vowel, and Diphthong" can be
completed on time. This paper was created with the aim of fulfilling one of the
assignments of phonetic and ponology courses. This paper is structured for
learning phonetic and ponology courses.

This paper entitled " Describing Consonant, Vowel, and Diphthong "
contains an explanation of consonants, vowels and diphthongs. With this, we can
find out more about this material. This paper provides a lot of knowledge about
consonant, vowel, and diphthong. Among them are understanding and differences.

The preparation of this paper can be realized with the support and
encouragement from various parties. For that reason the authors thank all those
who have helped, especially to:

1. Lecturers of Educational Platform courses who have given their guidance in

this task.

2. Parents who have provided various supports, both material and non-material.

3. Friends who have provided motivation and inspiration for the completion of
this review.

4. All parties who have provided assistance in this writing.

The author realizes that in the process of writing this is still far from
perfection in the material and writing. But we have tried with all the capabilities
and knowledge possessed. Therefore, the authors expect a variety of input,
suggestions, and proposals to build writing progress in the future.

Finally, we hope that this paper can be useful for us and our readers,
especially in phonetic learning and ponology.

Ciamis, Oktober 2019

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 Table Of Contents

Validity sheet ................................................................................................... i

Preface ............................................................................................................. ii

Table Of Contents ......................................................................................... iii

Part 1 Intoduction

1.1. Issue Background .................................................................................1

1.2. Problem Identification .........................................................................1
1.3. Purpose of Problem ..............................................................................2

Part 2 Discussion

2.1. Definition of Consonants, Vowels, and Diphthongs ............................ 3

2.2. The Difference and Connection ........................................................... 5

Part 3 Closing

1.1. Conclusing ..................................................................................... 19

1.2. Suggestion ...................................................................................... 19

References ........................................................................................................ 18

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 Part 1

Introduction

1.1. Issue Background

Phonetics is a scientific description of what speech sounds exist in a
language. It represents how they are produced and perceived and what
acoustic properties they have. Thus, it can be put in the class of natural
sciences. Phonetics essentially seeks to trace the processes physiologically
involved in sound production. It describes the ways the sounds are produced
and the points at which they are articulated.
Phonology is concerned with the regularities that govern the phonetic
realisations of sounds in words of a language. It looks at and tries to establish
a system of sound distinctions relevant to a particular language. It then seeks
to determine how the elements of this abstract system behave in actual speech.
Phonology actually delineates the functioning of sounds in particular contexts.
Phonetics is thus concerned with sound production while phonology
studies sound behaviour in realisation. For that, we are going to discuss about
what is consonants, vowels, diphthongs, the connection between it, and the
difference. We hope to add insight and add experience in making papers, and
can help readers in learning Phonetics and Phonology.

1.2. Problem Identification

This paper entitled "Describing Consonants, Vowels, and Diphthongs"
found several problems, including:
1.2.1. What is consonants, vowels, and diphthongs?
1.2.2. What is the connection between it?
1.2.3. What is the difference

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1.3. Purpose of problems
Based on the above formula, the authors aim to review or review the
papers with the title " Describing Consonants, Vowels, and Diphthongs ",
including:
1.3.1. To know what is consonants, vowels, and diphthongs.
1.3.2. To know what is the connection between it.
1.3.3. To know what is the difference

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 Part 2

Discussion

2.1. Definition of Consonant, Vowel, and Diphthong

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated

with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are, pronounced
with the lips, pronounced with the front of the tongue, pronounced with the
back of the tongue, pronounced in the throat and pronounced by forcing air
through a narrow channel (fricatives); and which have air flowing through the
nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

A consonant is a speech sound that is not a vowel. It also refers to letters of

the alphabet that represent those sounds: Z, B, T, G, and H are all consonants.

Consonants are all the non-vowel sounds, or their corresponding letters: A, E,

I, O, U and sometimes Y are not consonants. In hat, H and T are
consonants. Consonant can also be an adjective that describes things that
seem like they should go together, things that are "agreeable." You could say
a nation's offer of aid is consonant with their treaties. When you hear
consonant sounds in music, they are pleasing, the opposite of "dissonant"
sounds which are harsh.

Vowel

A vowel is a particular kind of speech sound made by changing the shape of

the upper vocal tract, or the area in the mouth above the tongue. In English it
is important to know that there is a difference between a vowel sound and
a letter in the alphabet. In English there are five vowel letters in the alphabet,
but there are many more vowel sounds.

The sounds of English are written with letters in the English alphabet, as
either vowels or consonants. All English words are written with vowel letters
in them.

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These letters are vowels in English:

A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y.

It is said that Y is "sometimes" a vowel, because the letter Y represents both

vowel and consonant sounds. In the words cry, sky, fly, my and why, letter Y
represents the vowel sound /aɪ/. In words like myth and synchronize, Y
represents the vowel sound /ɪ/. In words like only, quickly, and folly, Y
represents the vowel sound /i/.

It can also be a consonant sound called a glide as in the beginning of these

words: yellow, yacht, yam, yesterday. Y is a consonant about 2.75% of the
time, and a vowel about 97.5% of the time.[1]

The letter W can sometimes be the second part of a vowel sound as in words
like such as cow, bow, or how. In these words the vowel has the sound of
/aʊ/. The letter W can be used as a consonant sound at the beginning of in the
words when, where, wet. In some in some languages, like Welsh, the letter W
represents the vowel sound /ʊ/, like cwm (a kind of valley).

In written English the six vowel letters are used to represent the 13-15
vowel sounds (depending on the variety) in English.[2] This means there are
many more vowel sounds than letters in the English alphabet, and the English
spelling systems doesn't always help us figure out what the English sounds
are. This can be confusing.

The rest of the letters of the alphabet are consonants:

B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y (sometimes), and Z

Diphthong

Diphthongs are a combination of two different vowel sounds, one vowel

sounds turns into another sound as you say them. If you pronounce the words
below slowly, you can hear the two vowel sounds of the diphthongs.

Common diphthongs in English include:

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 /eɪ/ as in ate, reign, vain, flavor, slay, and convey

/oʊ/ as in toe, row, go, boat, mode, and chateau

/aɪ/ as in eye, I, pie, cry, cypher, climb, lime, light, kayak, Thai, and height

/aʊ/ as in loud, house, cow, about, Daoism, and Macau

/oɪ/ as in boy, moist, and Freud

Like other languages, there are many dialects of English, and different
dialects often use different vowel sounds. But the IPA symbols can tell us
which vowel sound a dialects uses. For example, some American English
speakers differentiate between the vowels in the words cot and caught, while
in other dialects these words are homophones. People who study the
differences between the dialects of English often study the different way
vowel sounds are pronounced.

The difference between the way English is spelled and the way the words are
pronounced came about because all languages change, so spoken English
changes, but the spelling system does not.

2.2. The Difference and Connection of Consonant, Vowel, and Diphthong

The difference between consonants and vowels

There are five vowels and 21 consonants in English, right? Well, no.

Vowels and consonants are sounds, not letters. Depending on your accent and
how thinly you slice them, there are about 20 vowels and 24 consonants.

The difference between vowels and consonants

A vowel is a speech sound made with your mouth fairly open, the nucleus of
a spoken syllable.

A consonant is a sound made with your mouth fairly closed.

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When we talk, consonants break up the stream of vowels (functioning as
syllable onsets and codas), so that we don’t sound like we’ve just been to the
dentist for four fillings and the anaesthetic hasn’t worn off yet.

Consonants require more precise articulation than vowels, which is why

children find them harder to learn, and often end up in speech therapy after
having become so cross at not being understood that they’ve started hitting
people.

Only a few children with severe speech sound difficulties (often called
dyspraxia or apraxia) sometimes need therapy to help them produce vowel
sounds correctly.

Most syllables contain a vowel, though vowel-like consonants can

occasionally be syllables. And to complicate matters, many English vowels
are technically two or three vowels shmooshed together.

One of my new favourite things is the free version of the Cued Articulation
iPad app, which contains this handy consonant chart, which you might like to
refer to in what follows:

(Just ignore the “c” with a cedilla, it’s slicing things a bit fine IMHO. Also
ignore the “wh” if you say “whale” and “wail” as homophones).

How consonants are produced

Saying consonant sounds involves constricting airflow in different locations

in your mouth by:

briefly stopping then releasing the air (“p”, “b”, “t”, “d”, “k”, “g”),

diverting the airflow and associated resonance to your nose (“m”, “n”, “ng”),

squeezing the air through a narrow space (“th” as in “thin”, “th” as in “then”,
“f”, “v”, “s”, “z”, “sh”, “zh” as in “vision”, “h”, and in posh dialects, “wh”),

combining stopping then squeezing (“ch”, “j”), or

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narrowing the vocal tract (“w”, “y”, “r”, “l”).

Consonants that are like vowels – approximants

The last four consonant sounds on the above list – “y”, “w”, “r”, “l” – are
produced with less mouth constriction than other consonants, and in
linguistics are called “approximants”.

Approximants occupy a kind of linguistic grey area between vowels and

consonants, in fact “w” and “y” are also known as semivowels.

There’s very little difference between the consonant sound “y” and the vowel
sound “ee” as in “see/sea/me”, and between the consonant sound “w” and the
vowel sound “ooh” as in “moon/rule/grew”.

These sounds are classified as consonants because they generally behave like
consonants, that is, they’re (in) syllable onsets not syllable nuclei.

Syllabic consonants

In many English dialects, the sound “l” can be a syllable all by itself in words
like “bottle” and “middle”. This is also true of the sound “n” in words like
“button” and “hidden”.

In these words, the tongue has just said “t” or “d”, so it’s already in the right
place to go straight into the sound “l” or “n”, without saying a vowel first.
However, we still write a “vowel letter” in this syllable (le, on, en) and we
say a vowel sound in other words with similar final spellings, like “giggle”
and “dabble”, “ribbon” and “beckon”, “happen” and “embiggen”.

The sound “m” can also act as a syllable in words like “rhythm” and
“algorithm”, again because the sounds “th” and “m” are physically very close
together. In this case we don’t write a “vowel letter” in the last syllable, but
we do say a vowel sound in the last syllable of most words spelt like this, like
“autism” and “criticism” (click here for more, see right column).

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Tell language mavens who insist a consonant is never a syllable to stick that
up their jumpers.

Voiced and voiceless consonants

Some consonants are produced using your voice (“b”, “d”, “g”, “m”, “n”,
“ng”, “th” as in “then”, “v”, “z”, “zh” as in “vision”, “j”, “y”, “w”, “r”, “l”)
and the rest are voiceless (“p”, “t”, “k”, “th” as in “thin”, “f”, “s”, “sh”, “ch”,
“h”).

Most consonants come in neat voiced-voiceless pairs – “p/b”, “t/d”, “k/g”, “th
as in thin/th as in then”, “f/v”, “s/z”, “sh/zh as in vision”, and “ch/j” (yes, I
read a recent Grammarly blog post, and have decided to start using the
Oxford Comma).

Try saying each of these sound pairs in turn, and you’ll notice that the main
difference between each pair is that you use your voice for the first sound, but
not the second one.

If you are using your voice when you say the sounds “p”, “t”, “k”, “th” as in
“thin”, “f”, “s”, “sh” or “ch”, you’re saying them wrong. This can confuse
children about the difference between sounds, and/or cause blending
problems (click here or here for previous blog posts on this).

The sound “h”, is also voiceless, but lost its voiced pair somewhere down the
crack between Old and Middle English, though its ghost still makes guest
appearances as the spelling gh in words like “thought”, “night” and
“daughter”.

The nasal sounds “m”, “n” and “ng” don’t have voiceless pairs, but are made
in the same spots in your mouth as, respectively, “p/b”, “t/d” and “k/g”.

Here are the handy vowel charts from the Cued Articulation iPad app, but
please remember it’s an app, so the red buttons marked “diphthongs” and
“pure vowels” take you to these charts, they aren’t the labels for the charts

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they’re on. The chart headings are up at the top, and the sounds are organised
from high front vowels at top left to low back ones at bottom right.

How vowels are produced

All vowel sounds are voiced, unless you’re whispering or speaking Japanese,
Quebecois, or a North American indigenous language like Comanche or
Cheyenne.

Vowels are sounds produced with the mouth fairly open, and differ by mouth
shape, for example “ee” is a high front vowel and “o” as in “got” is a low
back vowel.

Some vowels, like the “a” in “cat” and the “i” in “big”, are said with the
mouth in the same position from start to finish (monophthongs).

Some vowels, like the “ay” in “paper” and the “I” in “hi”, move from one
mouth position to another (diphthongs).

There’s also one vowel in English, the “you” in “human”, which is actually a
combination of a consonant and a vowel (“y” + “ooh”). But knowing this
doesn’t help us spell it, there isn’t usually any need to notice the little “y”
sound, which in some dialects is omitted (think of how the word “news” is
pronounced in US English).

In the English I speak, in which the consonant “r” is only pronounced before
a vowel, a few vowels like the “ire” in “fire” and the “our” in “sour” contain
three mouth positions (triphthongs). When teaching spelling it’s best to treat
these as two sounds (i…e + r, ou + r).

Smart children often notice that diphthongs are actually two sounds. This sort
of excellent listening should give rise to much rejoicing and praise, after
which they can be told that spelling gets mighty confusing if we slice these
sounds so finely (e.g. the “ay” sound in paper contains two sounds, but
represented by only one letter), so we usually treat diphthongs as single
sounds.

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The only time I remember having to actively slice a diphthong in half for a
learner was in order to explain the spellings of the homophones “gaol” and
“jail”. We Aussies learn a lot about gaols in history class and from the family
genealogy nut, though we’ve never found out why Great-great-great
grandfather William Yates, a 20-year-old York chimney sweep, was
transported to Tasmania for life on a ship called the Phoenix in 1820. If your
family genealogy nut is in York and can find out, my family genealogy nut
would be most appreciative. But I digress.

Consonant sounds spelt with “vowel letters”

Three English “vowel letters” are commonly used in spellings of consonant

sounds, such as (the links take you to wordlists for each spelling):

The letter E in the ve in “solve”, the se in “house” and “please”, the ce in

“dance” and “ocean”, the ze in “sneeze”, the the in “soothe”, the ed in
“jumped” and “hummed”, the dge in “smudge”, and the che in “avalanche”.

The letter I represents the sound “y” in words like “union” and “brilliant, plus
it’s in the ti in “motion”, the ci in “social”, the si in “pension” and “version”,
the gi in “religion”, the sci in “conscious”, the ssi in “passion”, and the xi in
“anxious”.

The letter U is a common way to spell the consonant sound “w”, as

in “queen” and “penguin” (we usually write qu and gu, not kw, cw or gw),
and is also part of the gu in “guess”, the gue in “league”, the qu in “liquor”,
the que in “boutique”, and the “bu” in “build”.

The sound “you” as in “human” is actually a combination of a consonant and

a vowel (y+ooh), though it’s mostly spelt with vowel letters: U as in
human, U…E as in tune, EW as in few, UE as in cue or EU as in feud. Nouns
that start with this sound like “unicorn”, “ute” and “Europe” thus start with a
a vowel letter but a consonant sound, which is why we say “a unicorn”, “a
ute” and “a European”, not “an unicorn”, “an ute” or “an European”.

Vowel sounds spelt with “consonant letters”

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The obvious one here is the letter Y, weirdly called a consonant letter despite
mostly representing vowel sounds, in words
like “my”, “duty” and “gym” (no, I haven’t been doing enough exercise lately
either).

This probably happened because traditional phonics focuses too much on first
letters in words, where the letter Y represents a consonant sound (except in
words like “Yvette” and “yttrium”).

On top of all this, there are heaps of vowel sounds spelt with two, three and
four letters which contain “consonant letters”, mostly the letters W, Y, R and
L. Here are some examples:

The letter W is in the aw in “saw”, the ew in “new” and “grew”, and the ow
in “how” and “show”.

The letter Y is in the ay in “play”, the ey in “grey” and “valley”, the oy in

“boy”, the ye in bye, the y…e in “type”, and the yr in “myrtle”. All four
letters representing the vowel sound in the word “myrrh” are supposedly
“consonant letters”.

The letter R is in the ar in “car”, “warm” and “scarce”, the er in “her”, the ir
in “bird”, the or in “fork”, the ur in “curl”, the air in “hair”, the are in “care”,
the ear in “hear”, “learn” and “bear”, the ere in “here”, “there” and “were”,
the eer in “beer”, the oar in “soar”, the ore in “sore”, the our in “pour”,
the oor in “door”, the eur in “poseur”, the aur in “Minotaur”, and in the
English I speak and write, the r in “flour”, re in “centre” and our in “harbour”.

The letter L is in the al in “calm” and walk, and the ol in “yolk”.

The ghostly letters G and H are in the igh in “high”, the ough in
“thought”, “drought”, “though”, “through” and “thorough”, the eigh in
“weight”, the augh in “caught”, and the aigh in “straight”.

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The letter H is also in the ah in “galah”, the eh in “meh”, the eah in “yeah”,
the oh in “John”, the ooh in “pooh”, and the uh in “duh”. If I can write it and
you can read and understand it, it’s a real word.

So, what’s the difference between vowels and consonants?

The next time a learner asks you which letters are vowels and which letters
are consonants, try answering as follows:

Vowels and consonants are sounds not letters,

Vowels are the loud sounds that form the nuclei of each syllable, and
consonants separate them.

The letters B, C, D, F, J, K, M, N, P, Q, S, T, V, X and Z are mainly used to

spell consonants,

The letters A and O are mainly used to spell vowels, and

The letters E, G, H, I, L, R, U, W, Y are used as/in spellings representing both

vowels and consonants.

The Difference of Dipthongs And Vowels

Pronunciation, in any language, is crucial for good communication and

understanding. Vowels and diphthongs are not unique to English speakers,
and their use is always to ensure pronunciation in whichever language they
are being applied. Diphthongs relate to the phonetic alphabet, and help
language learners describe and adapt to different sounds.

They are particularly important, and in English, are used because there are
many different English accents across the board with American English and
British English being two main varieties in pronunciation, and with
Australian English also having distinct pronunciations. Accordingly, second
and third language learners need a basis on which to concentrate their own
efforts to pronounce words without reliance on an accent or inflection they

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may be used to, and because their own language will have its own set of
sounds applied to vowels and consonants.

The main difference between vowels and diphthongs, without being too
technical, is that diphthongs are exclusively sounds whereas vowels, although
they are also sounds, are also specific letters of the alphabet from which those
familiar sound combinations originate.

The word "diphthong" comes from Greek words meaning "two sounds." That
pretty much tells you the difference between diphthongs and vowels.

Pure vowels have just one sound. When such a vowel is spoken, the tongue
remains still.

By contrast, diphthongs have two sounds and the tongue must move while
moving from one sound to the other. A diphthong starts with one vowel
sound and then glides to the other. Many diphthongs are made with two
letters (like "look" and "coin") but others can have only one letter (like "ride"
and "fine").

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 Part 3

Closing

3.1. Conclusion

consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial

closure of the vocal tract.

A vowel is a particular kind of speech sound made by changing the shape of

the upper vocal tract, or the area in the mouth above the tongue.

Diphthongs are a combination of two different vowel sounds, one vowel

sounds turns into another sound as you say them.

Vowels and consonants are sounds not letters,

Vowels are the loud sounds that form the nuclei of each syllable, and
consonants separate them.

The difference between vowels and diphthongs, without being too technical,
is that diphthongs are exclusively sounds whereas vowels, although they are
also sounds, are also specific letters of the alphabet from which those familiar
sound combinations originate.

3.2. Suggestion

In English education, we must know what consonants, vowels and diptongs

are. Because its application is very important for pronunciation, intonation,
etc.

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 Reference

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/consonant

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/diphthong

https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-of-diphthong-and-a-
vowel-sound-followed-by-a-consonant-sound

https://www.enotes..com/homework-help/what-difference-vowels-diphthongs-
113759

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/vowel

http://kelasbahasainggris.com/alphabet-vowel-and-consonant/

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