Make A Lang

Today I wanted to talk about vowels. More specifically, how vowel sounds combine. Combining vowel sounds creates diphthongs; thats the basic definition of a diphthong . But, there is another category, and its used a lot in English. Its called a "semi-vowel" and it includes letters like r, w, and y. This took me a second to wrap my head around, because I'd always thought of w and r, and, to a lesser extent, y, as consonants. But think about it- a consonant is a sound we make by impeding the flow of air through our mouths (p, m, s, b, z, even h , a little), but you're not really putting your tongue anywhere when you make an r. You could argue that you use your lips to shape a "w" sound, but when you sound it out, its pretty obvious that w is pretty much an "oo" sound combined with whatever is before or after it (row, water, coward). So my amateur-linguist definition of a semi-vowel is: a diphthong or vowel sound that is used as a consonant. This ...