Re: Ng'and'ana

>On Tuesday, January 22, 2002, at 07:28 , Elliott Belser wrote:
>
>>Right then.  I do not know how to classify letter sounds, so help me
>>with that...
>
>Peter Ladefoged's *A Course in Phonetics* is what we used in school. I
>found it to be accessible to the beginner and also one of those books that
>grows with you as you learn more. A worthy purchase.
>
>>ae (pronouced like the 'ay' in 'way')
>>a (pronounced like the 'a' in 'father')
>>e (like the 'e' in 'left')
>>i (like the 'ee' in 'see')
>>o (like the 'o' in 'know')
>>u (like the 'oo' in 'food')
>>y (like the 'i' in 'sigh'), sometimes spelled 'ay'
>
>In terms of classification, you've got:
>
>ae    /ej/    mid front unrounded to high front unrounded diphthong
>a     /a/     low back unrounded
>e     /e/     mid front unrounded
>i     /i/     high front unrounded
>o     /o/     mid back rounded
>u     /u/     high back rounded
>y     /aj/    low back unrounded to high front unrounded diphthong
>
>The first column is your orthography, the second is International Phonetic
>Alphabet (IPA) phonemic notation, and the third is a simplified list of
>the articulatory features of each phone. You can probably figure out what
>the terms mean by introspection, although people at the bus stop might
>look at you strangely. ;)
Okay... question.  Is a dipthong 'two vowels of a language spoken as
one sound?'  Because I don't think that the engandan ae and y are
dipthongs, I think that they're their own characters.

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