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English diphthongs have undergone many changes since the Old and Middle English periods. The sound changes discussed here involved at least one phoneme which historically was a diphthong. ==Old English== Old English diphthongs could be short or long. Both kinds arose from sound changes occurring in Old English itself, although the long forms sometimes also developed from Proto-Germanic diphthongs. They were mostly of the height-harmonic type (both elements at the same height) with the second element further back than the first. The set of diphthongs that occurred depended on dialect (and their exact pronunciation is in any case uncertain). Typical diphthongs are considered to have been as follows: * high, fully backing, , spelt (found in Anglian dialects, but merged into in Late West Saxon) * high, narrower, possibly , spelt (found in Late West Saxon) * mid, , spelt * low, , spelt As with monophthongs, the length of the diphthongs was not indicated in spelling, but in modern editions of OE texts the long forms are often written with a macron: , , , . In the transition from Old to Middle English, all of these diphthongs generally merged with monophthongs. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Phonological history of English diphthongs」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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