verb
- to change (a vowel sound) into a diphthong; to pronounce as a diphthong
Usage: chiefly British spelling; American English typically uses 'diphthongize'; linguistics and phonetics term
Examples
- In some dialects, the vowel sound in 'face' has diphthongised over time.
- Linguists observed that the language began to diphthongise certain vowels during the medieval period.
- The pronunciation of the word shifted as speakers diphthongised the original monophthong.
- Historical sound changes caused many Latin vowels to diphthongise in Romance languages.