In phonetics, a triphthong (/ˈtrɪfθɒŋ/ or /ˈtrɪpθɒŋ/) (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos", literally "with three sounds," or "with three tones") is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third. While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulator position, diphthongs have two, and triphthongs three.
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English
In British Received Pronunciation, (monosyllabic triphthongs with R are optionally distinguished from sequences with disyllabic realizations)
As [eɪ̯] and [əʊ̯] become [ɛə̯] and [ɔː] respectively before /r/, all instances of [eɪ̯.ə] and [əʊ̯.ə] are words with the suffix "-er".
In Cockney, triphthongal realizations [ɪi̯ɐ̯, ɛi̯ə̯, ɔu̯ə̯, æi̯ə̯] of /iə, eə, ɔə, æʊ/ are possible, and are regarded as "very strongly Cockney". Among these, the triphthongal realization of /ɔə/ occurs most commonly. There is not a complete agreement about the distribution of these; according to Wells (1982b), they "occur in sentence-final position", whereas according to Mott (2012), these are "most common in final position".
Bernese German
Bernese German has the following triphthongs:
Northern Bavarian
Northern Bavarian has the following triphthongs:
The Northern Bavarian triphthongs have evolved from combinations of former long vowels or diphthongs from the Middle High German (MHG) period and vocalized r.
Second segment is the nucleus
Portuguese:
Some Portuguese triphthongs appear in places where some speakers can break the first segment to form a hiatus (that is, [i̯] or [u̯] are not equivalent to standard Portuguese semivowels [j] and [w] in this case), and as such they are deemed as non-triphthongs by standard, although many or most speakers produce them as such (and even more frequently when speaking colloquially):
In addition, phonetic diphthongs are formed in most Brazilian Portuguese dialects by the vocalization of /l/ in the syllable coda, as well as by yodization of vowels preceding /s/ and /z/ or their syllable-final pre-consonantal allophones [ʃ] and [ʒ], thus if these consonants precede diphthongs, it is likely that a triphthong will form:
Romanian:
Vietnamese:
Third segment is the nucleus
Romanian (semivocalic phonemes marked with inverted breve accent below):