E is six years old. M is his mother. M is driving, E is in the back seat.
| E: | How many vowels are in "yay"? |
| M: | Well, that's interesting. Yay has a diphthong, which is when two vowels are stuck together. you can hear it if you say it slowly: Yaaaaaeeeee. |
| E: | Yaaaaeeeee. Yaaaaeeee. Yeah, I hear it. Are there any diphthongs in "diphthong"? |
| M: | No, there are only the vowels [ɪ] in dip and [ɔ] in thong. |
| E: | Oh, that's too bad. You know that there's an er-sister (the kindergarten term for an r-colored vowel) in 'sister'. That's cool. What are some other diphthongs? |
| M: | Well, there's the ow in cow--hear it Kaaaaaaauuuuuu and there's ..... |
| E: | Are we almost home? |
[Script submitted by Mark Seidenberg. Another phonemic awareness story is here.]
Posted by Mark Liberman at November 29, 2005 01:28 PM