The Musa alphabet includes 22 vowel letters : all the other letters are consonants, including some semivowels (and some punctuation and arithmetic symbols). We'll present the vowels and semivowels on this page, and the other consonants on the following pages, so you can see how it works not just for English but for all the other languages. We'll use some technical terms, but you don't have to remember them.

Vowels

Vowels differ from each other in five main parameters :

• How open or closed your mouth is as you say them. (In acoustic terms, this corresponds to the first formant.)
• How far towards the front or back the narrowest point is (the second formant).
• Whether your lips are rounded or spread (unrounded).
• Whether the vowel is stressed (louder, longer, higher pitch) or not. In Musa, vowels are written low when unstressed, and written high when stressed or when they carry a high tone.
• Whether the vowel is held for a longer or shorter time.
• Some languages feature vowels with air exiting your nose as you pronounce them (nasal vowels) or not (oral vowels).
• Some languages also make a distinction based on the position of the root of your tongue: some vowels have advanced tongue root (ATR or +ATR) while others feature retracted tongue root (RTR or -ATR).
• Some languages distinguish between tense and lax vowels. Tense vowels are those pronounced further from the center of your mouth, in both dimensions: they are closer and less central than lax vowels, and therefore take more effort to enunciate. This parameter seems to be another way of talking about the first two, but it's sometimes useful, as you'll see below.

I'll discuss the last few traits further below. For now, let's talk about the first three.

Short Explanation using IPA Vowels

For those of you who know the IPA, here's a quick presentation of the Musa vowel letters. A longer presentation follows below.

The IPA portrays the range of vowels as a quadrilateral: narrower at the bottom but still tetragonal, with both spread and round vowels at each point. But the acoustic data don't support that analysis. Based on the acoustics, that grid is a triangle, with a pointy bottom at the letter a, and rounded vowels shifted to the right of spread vowels. Here are the two analyses contrasted :

As you can see, the chart on the left shows 28 vowel letters, while the one on the right shows only 20. Those 8 missing vowels could be added to the acoustic chart - and we're going to add one of them - but the others aren't needed: they would be very close to other vowels already on the acoustic chart. So we won't talk about them any more. We also don't need to distinguish the ɒ vowel from its neighbors ɑ and ɔ, and we consider the ə and ɐ vowels to be the unstressed versions of the ɤ and ʌ vowels, respectively.

But we do bring two vowels over from the lefthand chart that are missing on the right: the ʏ vowel and a new ᵻ vowel, which both go in the empty space in the middle of the top row. Just as the ɪ and ʊ vowels are the lax versions of the the i and u vowels, so the ʏ and ᵻ vowels are the lax versions of the the y and ɯ vowels. They're quite common: ᵻ is the most common vowel in English!

Finally, we add a vowel letter  to represent the rhotic vowel that occurs twice in English murmur: the first time stressed (IPA ɝ) and the second time unstressed (IPA ɚ). The sound it represents is rare, but two languages in which it occurs - Chinese and English - are the world's most spoken languages!

Here's the resulting Musa vowel triangle, which we'll discuss in detail below. (I put the rhotic vowel at left of this diagram, but it should be hovering below the center. It features a lowered third formant, but my chart doesn't have a third dimension.)

Musa also features one vowel suffix to indicate long vowels, and another to spell nasal vowels. That brings the total to 22 vowel letters, all written with only one shape.

All these charts with their neat lines shouldn't distract you from a fundamental fact about vowels: unlike consonants, the vowel space is continuous - you can pronounce any point in the vowel space, any combination of the first two formants. So when we talk about a distinction between two adjacent vowels, what we really mean is that a language distinguishes between them, while another language might not.

For example, speakers of any of the many languages with only five vowels, like Spanish, might have trouble hearing the difference between English sheep (IPA i) and ship (IPA ɪ). In Spanish, both of those sounds are within the range of normal i, which only has to be pronounced somewhere in that range. Stressed Spanish i might be tenser, closer to IPA i, while unstressed i might sound closer to IPA ɪ … or not! When writing Spanish in Musa, we only use the letter for i.

This is a good place to mention that Musa has a special notation for spelling the sounds of vowels with more precision, a level of detail which is only useful for phoneticians. This vowel digraph notation is explained in detail on the Spelling Pronunciation page.

The Musa Vowel Chart

Now let's get back to studying the vowels. Here are all the Musa vowels, arranged in a chart based on the three first parameters. The black shows a standard transcription we use, and the green shows common IPA letters for the sound.

In this grid, the first two columns show front vowels and the last two show back vowels, but the two central columns show central vowels. Musa doesn't distinguish a separate category of central vowels; the front rounded vowels are pretty central, as are the back spread vowels.

The first and third columns show spread (unrounded) vowels, while the second and fourth columns show rounded vowels. Front rounded vowels are usually pronounced with the lips compressed, while the back rounded vowels are usually pronounced with the lips protruded. We're so used to this correspondence that exceptions sound very funny. For example, the Japanese u is rounded, but with compressed lips instead of protruded, and it definitely sounds different.

The second and fourth rows are in yellow, because they spell lax vowels. Many languages don't need them - don't need to distinguish them from the corresponding tense vowels - and in those cases, Musa uses the tense vowel letters.

I put the rhotic letter at the bottom of the second column, since we don't need an open front rounded vowel (IPA ɶ): no language uses that sound distinctively.

Cardinal Vowels

Let's start with the three vowels that define the triangle, which we can call Musa's Cardinal Vowels. Click on each Musa vowel as it's introduced (on white) to hear it.

The  a vowel underpins the whole vowel system; it's the mother of all vowels. To pronounce it, open your mouth as much as possible, with your tongue retracted. In that position, your tongue can't move forward or back, and your lips can't be rounded or spread any more - that's why the chart is a triangle. It's the sound in English words like palm spa father. It's also the sound spelled by the letter a in many, if not most, languages that use the Roman, Greek, or Cyrillic alphabets.

The  i vowel is pronounced with your mouth almost closed and your lips spread as widely as possible. Your tongue is pushed forward into the space behind your teeth, but not touching anything. It's the sound in English fleece sea meter. It's written i in French, Spanish, Catalan, and Italian si, and ie in German Sie.

The  u vowel is pronounced with your mouth almost closed and your lips rounded into a tight kiss. Your tongue is raised upward and back, again without touching anything. It's the sound in English goose you super. It's written u in Spanish, Catalan, Italian, and German, but ou in French vous.

Central Close Vowels

The last two vowels you just met are both close, but they're otherwise quite different. The  vowel is front and spread, while the  vowel is back and rounded. Front vowels can also be rounded, and back vowels can also be spread, but they're less common and more central. Here are the close ones :

The  ue vowel is a close front rounded vowel, as in French sud or German süd. It's the same sound as English ee, except that you say it with your lips rounded. Round your lips as if you were going to say too, but then say tee instead.

The  eu vowel is a close back spread vowel, as in Turkish, Korean, and Vietnamese. It's the same sound as English oo, except that you say it with your lips spread. Spread your lips as if you were going to say tee, but then say too instead.

The four close vowels you've just met -     - are each at the head of a family of vowels that differ only in height, how close or open they are. And in Musa, the vowels in each family share the same shape. But we'll continue by height.

By the way, when we talk about vowels being open or close, we're referring to the height of the smallest opening that the air has to pass through. Front vowels are made closer by closing your jaw, while back vowels are made closer by raising your tongue, but we use the words "raised" and "lowered" to mean "more closed" and "more open", without specifying what's being raised or lowered.

Near Close Vowels

You've already met the  i vowel. It's a tense vowel: you have to go all the way out to the limits of your mouth to say it. But if you only go halfway there (starting from the lazy center of your mouth), you'll end up with the corresponding lax vowel,  ih. The lax letter just tips the tense letter sideways, and the transcription adds an h.  is front and close, while  is near-front and near-close. It's the sound in English kit kiss king. It makes fill different from feel, and the verb live different from leave.

The lax version of  ue is  ueh. It occurs in German, written ü as in schützen, and in Nordic languages, written y as in Swedish syll, both when short (the long versions use the corresponding tense vowels), and in Kazakh жүр.

The lax version of  eu is  euh. It's actually the most common vowel in English, spelling the reduced vowel in words like helmet, rabbit, button, bottle, bottom as well as Irish broad i, Russian ы, and Romanian î or â.

Finally, the lax version of  u is  uh. It's the sound in English put foot wood. It makes full different from fool, and cookie different from kooky. This is the only lax vowel whose letter is not just the sideways version of the tense letter.

Mid Vowels

The mid vowels are halfway between the close vowels     and the open vowel , all tense vowels. They're very common.

Halfway between  and  is the  e vowel. It's the sound in English face they day, and occurs in many languages, usually written e: Spanish peso, French café, German See.

Halfway between  and  is the  oe vowel. We don't use it in English, but it's the sound of French peu and German schön.

Halfway between  and  is the  ea vowel. This letter spells the famous schwa sound when unstressed: the sound you make with your mouth completely relaxed. It's used, both stressed and unstressed, in many languages like German, Chinese, Malay, Dutch, Catalan, and several English dialects.

Halfway between  and  is the  o vowel. It's the sound in English goat no hole, and occurs in many languages, usually written o: Spanish toro, French mot eau, German so.

Open Mid Vowels

The four mid vowels you just met also have lax counterparts, more open and more central. Phoneticians call them open-mid vowels.

The lax version of  is  eh. It's the sound in English dress said weather. It makes fell different from fail, and bet different from bait. In Italian, Catalan, and Portuguese, it's the open e.

The lax version of  is  oeh. It's probably the rarest vowel in the chart, but it does appear in French, German, and Danish.

In contrast, the lax version of  is very common: it's  eah. It's the sound in English strut love upper, and in many English dialects, it's the unstressed sound in about comma. It makes cud different from both could and cod, and buck different from both book and bought.

The lax version of  is  oeh. It's the sound in English thought saw water. It makes call different from coal, and caught different from cot. In Italian, Catalan, and Portuguese, it's the open o.

Open and Rhotic Vowels

The first vowel you met was , which has two neighbors: one front spread vowel and one back vowel. But neither is as open as .

The open front spread vowel is  ae. It's the sound in English trap black ladder. It makes pat different from both pot and pet, and cap different from cup.

The open back vowel is  ah - the Musa letter covers both the spread and the round versions, since rounding isn't very distinctive when your mouth is wide open. We don't distinguish this vowel at all in American English: when unrounded (IPA [ɑ]), it's heard as /ä/ as in cot, while when rounded (IPA [ɒ]), it's heard as (IPA /ɔ/) as in caught. In British English, it's the START vowel, and the beginning of PRICE.

I'll also present the rhotic vowel here:  er. It's actually a  schwa with an odd tongue shape. It's the sound in English her first earth. When reduced, it's often a little lower and shorter, as is true for all vowels, so that purr doesn't sound exactly like per. But we use the same letter for both.

Recap of Vowels

Musa	IPA	Transcription	English Examples	French	Spanish	Italian	Others
	i	i	fleece, seed, shriek, be, key, reap, meter	si	piso	pira
	ɪ	ih	itchy, bit, kit, ship, rip, dim
	e	e	face, rain, wait, rein, they	ses	peso	pera
	ɛ	eh	elbow, bet, dress, step, ebb, hem, terror	sais	cede	perla
	æ	ae	apple, bat, trap, bad, cab, ham, arrow American bath, staff, clasp, dance
	y	ue		su			German and Turkish ü, Cantonese yu
	ʏ	ueh					German schützen, Kazakh жүр
	ø ɵ	oe		ceux			German and Turkish ö, Cantonese eu
	œ ɞ	oeh		jeune			Danish søns
	ɚ ɝ	er	butter, early, nurse, hurt, term, work				Chinese èr
	ɨ ɯ	eu					Turkish ı, Welsh u
	ᵻ	euh	helmet, rabbit, button, bottle, bottom				Irish broad i, Russian ы, Romanian î or â
	ə ɘ ɤ	ea		ce			Romanian ä
	ɜ ʌ ɐ	eah	onion, strut, cub, rub, hum, comma, quota, vodka, sofa, drama, about, arena, alive
	ɑ a	a	American lot, stop, rob, swan British bath, staff, clasp, dance (long) almond, palm, bra, father	sa	paso	parla
	u	u	goose, move, cube, fruit, knew, view	sous	pujo	buco
	ʊ	uh	cookie, book, foot, full, look, could
	o	o	goat, robe, road, so, sew, dough	saut	poso	bocca
	ɔ	oh	American cloth, cough, long, laurel, origin (long) awful, bought, thought, taut, hawk, broad	sot	move	bosco
	ɒ	ah	British otter, bother, lot, stop, rob, swan, cloth, cough, long, laurel, origin

Bright Vowels

I mentioned above the distinction between vowels with advanced tongue root (+ATR) and those with retracted tongue root (-ATR). The former sound "brighter" (they have narrower formants). This contrast is used extensively in Africa, often in systems of vowel harmony where a word has either all +ATR or all -ATR vowels (sometimes there are also neutral vowels that can be used with both sets). A typical African system might look like this :

Bright (+ATR)	Dull (-ATR)
 i	 ɪ
 e	 ɛ
 ə	 a
 o	 ɔ
 u	 ʊ

Stressed Vowels

Musa has a separate mechanism for indicating vowel stress: stressed vowels are written high, in the upper half of the line, while unstressed vowels are written low. For example, the Spanish word pasó has stress on the second syllable, while paso has stress on the first syllable. In Spanish, the vowel sounds don't change.

Some analyses recognize secondary stress. We'll talk more about that on the Accents page.

Reduced Vowels

When vowels are unstressed, they're sometimes pronounced more centrally than their stressed counterparts, as if your whole mouth was smaller. Sometimes, this reduction is so noticeable that Musa writes it with a different letter, as in English, Hindi, Russian, Portuguese, or Catalan. But if the difference is less extreme, then we just use the same letter, even though the unstressed version is somewhat lazy.

For example, the reduced second vowels in English golden helmet are more central than the stressed vowels in din mitt. We write the latter with  and the former with . The reduced final vowel in English pantry isn't as long as the unstressed but unreduced final vowel in pinetree: we write it with the same  letter, but without the offglide (see below).

Below, you see three unrounded Musa vowel letters running down the center of the chart, plus the rhotic vowel off to the left. These letters, when unstressed, usually represent reduced vowels. As reduced vowels, they have larger ranges than the normal vowel letters do; we're more tolerant of variation in reduced vowels.

In Catalan, for example, the front vowels a è é all reduce to schwa (IPA ə, Musa ) when unstressed; the back vowels ò ó u reduce to IPA ʊ, Musa . But in English, low a reduces to IPA ɐ, Musa , while the higher vowels tend to reduce all the way to schwi (unofficial IPA ᵻ, Musa ). Those two sounds distinguish Rosa's from roses.

A note on Musa's policy for spelling reduced vowels: it's often the case that several variants of a word are all in current use, distinguished only by the degree of vowel reduction. For example, words like return reward review remove can all be pronounced with a schwi, an open schwa, a mid-open eh like they're spelled (even though that vowel can't end a syllable in English), or even a closed ee (probably a spelling pronunciation):









You should choose the spelling that matches your pronunciation, but we normally spell it in its most reduced form (the first). There are many words which can't be reduced that far, so seeing the  schwi tells you that you can reduce all the way, even if you don't.

Nasal Vowels

Polish, Portuguese and French, for example, have nasal vowels. In Musa, these are written by appending a Nasal Suffix to the corresponding oral vowel. The Nasal Suffix looks and acts like a vowel: it's high following a high vowel, and low following a low vowel.

Here are some examples from French, contrasted with the oral vowel alone and the oral vowel followed by the letter n :

When needed, I'll transcribe the Nasal suffix as a tilde ˜, as in ã õ.

Syllabic nasals are vowels made with your mouth completely closed. For example, in Cantonese and Fukienese, there are syllabic nasals as in m and ng. In Musa, they're written with the nasal suffix, but without any preceding vowel.

	
嘸	㹳
m	ng

But this nasal vowel letter isn't used to spell the sounds of English bottom or button. Those are spelled with the short  vowel.

Most of the time, any vowel becomes somewhat nasalized before a nasal consonant like m n ny ng, and we don't spell it with the nasal suffix - it's taken for granted. But a phonemically nasal vowel keeps its suffix before a following nasal.

Long and Short Vowels

As I mentioned above, in some languages, vowels are distinguished by length. A long vowel is simply the short vowel held for a longer time, long enough to contrast with a short version.

Musa indicates that a vowel is long by following it with a short vertical line at the same height as the vowel letter. We call this sign the long mark.

For example, here are the words for uncle and grandfather in Japanese. They're the same, except for the long vowel (and different stress) :

It's sometimes difficult to distinguish between a long vowel and a narrow diphthong (one which moves very little). We'll talk more about this below.

The same Long mark is also used as a prefix to indicate an extra-short vowel, as in Vietnamese â ă.

Not Short	Short
 ơ ə	 â ə̆
 a a	 ă ă

In English, we use this prefix to spell the vowels shortened by pre-fortis clipping (described on the English page here). For example, this clipping is what distinguishes writing from riding, especially in dialects where the plosive is flapped. Note that the prefix goes before the vowel, even though it's probably the offglide that's clipped. The same rule applies if the vowel is followed by a sonorant like m n r l: the prefix goes before the vowel.

	
writing	riding

Syllabic Consonants

The  Long mark with no preceding vowel is also used for "missing" vowels. Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Sanskrit have syllables "without vowels", in which l or r plays the role of vowel. Musa spells them using the Long mark followed by the consonant. The long versions of these, as in Slovak and Sanskrit, use a second Long mark.

When used after a sibilant, this unaccompanied Long mark spells a hiss. But use the nasal suffix instead to make a hum when following a nasal sound. In Japanese, the moraic obstruent is written as the matching consonant followed by a Long mark.

But in English, we use the  letter to spell the schwi, the very reduced vowel in words like is, it, its, if, his, in, message, orange and button.

Semivowels

A semivowel is a vowel being used as a consonant. In theory, any of Musa's 20 vowels could be used in this way, which linguists call a non-syllabic vowel. The IPA writes them by putting an inverted breve below the vowel: ə̯. In Musa, we write them by adding a vertical chimney to the vowel:  becomes  and  becomes .

The most common semivowels are the two corresponding to the peripheral close vowels,  (the semivowel version of ) and  (the semivowel version of ). They correspond to English y and w, respectively. To be very precise, as semivowels they correspond to i̯ and u̯ (or even more precisely to ɪ̯ and ʊ̯). The use of a non-syllabic vowel in IPA is meant to imply that it's part of a diphthong - a vowel - as opposed to spelling them j (y) and w, which implies that they're approximant consonants which form part of the onset or coda. But we aren't going to be that picky: in Musa, we always spell them  and .

Here's a list of common semivowels:

•  is the semivowel version of . It occurs at the beginning of you and the end of we.
•  is the semivowel version of . It occurs at the beginning of we and the end of you.
• , the semivowel version of , occurs in French huit and Chinese 月 yuè.
• , the semivowel version of , occurs in Turkish ağa and Icelandic saga, where it is regarded as a "type of g", and in Korean 의사 ŭisa, where it is regarded as a "type of w". It's also used in Standard Chinese when a word starts with a vowel.
•  is the semivowel version of . As the English words rear rare roar show, it occurs as both onglide and offglide. The same sound occurs in Beijing Chinese as a terminal, when 儿 èr is combined with the previous final. It can be alveolar, postalveolar, retroflex or labialized: we use the same letter, as long as it features a lowered third formant.

Here are a few more that are less common:

•  is the semivowel version of . When used as an onglide, as in the Romanian ea diphthong, it represents movement from the front of your mouth. When used as an offglide, as in the Bengali diphthongs æe̯ ee̯ ɔe̯, it represents movement toward the front of your mouth.
•  is the semivowel version of . When used as an onglide, as in the Romanian oa diphthong, it represents movement from the back of your mouth. When used as an offglide, as in the Bengali diphthongs ao̯ ɔo̯ oo̯, it represents movement toward the back of your mouth.
•  is the semivowel version of . When used as an offglide, it represents a movement towards the bottom of your mouth, opening your mouth. It's used for long open vowels, and for opening diphthongs, as occur in Irish, Finnish and Thai, for example. We always use this letter for the semivowels of open vowels æ a ä ɑ, never  or  (we'll tell you why later).
•  is the semivowel version of . When used as an offglide, it represents a movement towards the center of your mouth. In non-rhotic dialects of English, it also spells the offglide of -r diphthongs, as if warm beer were pronounced waam beea.

Here are four of these semivowels in use in Bengali :

			
অয়ি ai	অয়ে ae	অয়ো ao	অয়ু au

The central vowel of a syllable is never written with a semivowel, but onglides and offglides always are, so that there's only one vowel for each syllable. For example, the Chinese word 水 shŭi (water) is written as shwĕy, not shuĕi, shuĕy or shwĕi.

One more thing to mention about semivowels: they look like consonants, but they're really vowels. For example, the  semivowel you just met has the same bottom as bilabial consonants like   , but it's not bilabial. The  semivowel has the same bottom as uvular consonants like   , but it's not uvular. Don't get confused!

Short Semivowels

Sometimes, we need a short version of these semivowels, to fit in a space the size of a vowel. For example, in Thai, Khmer, and Vietnamese, there are centering diphthongs that function as monophthongs, written with the  semivowel. But all three of these languages are written in Fangzi gait, and the vowels must fit in two cells: one for the vowel itself, and another for the offglide … which thus needs to be short.

In cases like these, we use special short versions of the semivowels, with the missing stem superimposed on the vowel. The closed shapes feature a horizontal bisector, and the open shapes feature a vertical bisector, but lax vowels reverse that pattern:

Diphthongs

Many languages feature diphthongs, which are vowels that move as they are pronounced. In Musa, as in most scripts, they're written using letters for the starting and ending positions. But in Musa, only one of these two letters is a vowel - the other is a semivowel.

If the ending position is more prominent, they're called rising diphthongs, and we write them with a semivowel onglide before the vowel. Spanish has a full set :

Rising		Example
	ye	ie as in tierra
	ya	ia as in diablo
	yo	io as in dios
	yu	iu as in viuda
	wo	uo as in cuota
	wa	ua as in cuadro
	we	ue as in fuego
	wi	ui as in buitre

If the starting position is more prominent, they're called falling diphthongs, and we write them with a semivowel offglide after the vowel. If the semivowel matches the vowel, the result is just a long vowel, which we would normally write with a long mark. But here's what they look like written as diphthongs :

The diphthongs iy uw sound very similar to the long vowels i: u:, and which of them we choose to write depends more on the language than on the sound. For example, in English, we write iy uw because these vowels behave like other closing diphthongs. For example, they don't need a "linking r" since they don't end in a vowel.

The mid vowels often form diphthongs with the semivowel in the same column. As with the high vowels, it's hard to tell the difference between a long vowel and a diphthong. In Dutch, zee beu boot are diphthongs in the Netherlands and long vowels in Flanders. If the movement is very short, we usually just write it as a long vowel. But here they are in their diphthong versions :

And here are the diphthong versions of the long open vowels, which use the wh semivowel :

Cross Vowels

When a falling diphthong crosses your mouth from one position to another, I'll call it a cross vowel. Several cross vowels cross to the front of your mouth :

Others cross to the back of your mouth :

Others cross to the bottom of your mouth, as in Finnish :

We use the  offglide if they cross to the center of your mouth, as in Vietnamese, Khmer, Thai and Irish :

Finally, we use the  semivowel for r-colored diphthongs, as in American English, where your tongue drops down at the end of the sound :

Thai has long diphthongs where a long vowel is followed by a cross offglide, as in ยาย. English also features long diphthongs - triphthongs - in words like pyre and power.

Germanic Vowels

Now we're in a position to look at examples that include long and cross vowels. The Germanic languages have some of the largest vowel inventories in the world, so let's look at some of them. Note that the vowels are usually lax when short and tense when long (but in Danish, both tense and lax vowels can be long or short).

Musa	English	Dutch	German	Danish	Swedish
Short Vowels
				milde
	bit	zit	bitten	minde	sill
				melde
	bet	zet	Betten	kælig	hetta
	bat			malle	hätta
				dysse
		nut	Bütten	dyppe	syll
				kønne	full
			Böttingen	grøn	nött
	(American) better
		de	eine	danske	begå
	bud, comma		einer	ånder
	bob		Baten	mange	matt
				kulde
	book		Butten	foto	bott
				lunde
	boss	zot	Bottich	vor	moll
		zat		bolle
Long Vowels and Narrow Diphthongs
 	beet	zie	bieten	mile	sil
				mene
 	bait	zee	beten	mæle	hel
		mei		male	häl
		nu	wüten	dyse	ful
				døbe
		beu	böten	høne	nöt
				smøre
	balm	la		arne
 	boot	moe	buhten	kule	bot
				stole
 	boat	zo	Booten	låne	mål
	bought			kort
			baten		mat
Wide (Cross) Diphthongs
		boei
	boy	mooi	Beute
	by	saai	weiten
		nieuw
		meeuw
		ruw			syl
		lui
	bout
		kou	Bauten
Musa	English	Dutch	German	Danish	Swedish

Centering Diphthongs
Roman	General American	Received Pronunciation	Standard Southern British
bird			
beard			
bared			
bard			
bored			
boor			
byre			
bower			

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