In phonetics, a triphthong (from Greek Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: τρίφθογγος,) 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.
Triphthongs are not to be confused with disyllabic sequences of a diphthong followed by a monophthong, as in German Feuer pronounced as /de/ 'fire', where the final vowel is longer than those found in triphthongs.
Triphthongs that feature close elements typically analyzed as pronounced as //j// and pronounced as //w// in phonology are not listed. For instance, the Polish word łój pronounced as /pl/ 'tallow' is typically analyzed as pronounced as //CVC// - a sequence of a consonant followed by a vowel and another consonant. This is because the palatal approximant is resyllabified in some inflected forms, such as łojami pronounced as /pl/ (instr. pl.), and also because pronounced as //w// occurs word-finally after a consonant just like pronounced as //l// does (compare przemysł pronounced as /pl/ 'industry' with Przemyśl pronounced as /pl/ 'Przemyśl'), which means that both of them behave more like consonants than vowels.
On the other hand, pronounced as /[ɪ̯, i̯, ʊ̯, u̯]/ are not treated as phonetic consonants when they arise from vocalization of pronounced as //l//, pronounced as //v// or pronounced as //ɡ// as they do not share almost all of their features with those three.
Bernese German has the following triphthongs:
They have arisen due to the vocalization of pronounced as //l// in the syllable coda; compare the last two with Standard German Gefühl pronounced as /de/ and Schule pronounced as /de/, the last one with a schwa not present in the Bernese word.
Danish has the following triphthongs:[1]
In British Received Pronunciation, and most other non-rhotic (r-dropping) varieties of English, monosyllabic triphthongs with R are optionally distinguished from sequences with disyllabic realizations:
As pronounced as /[eɪ̯]/ and pronounced as /[əʊ̯]/ become pronounced as /[ɛə̯]/ and pronounced as /[ɔː]/ respectively before pronounced as //r//, most instances of pronounced as /[eɪ̯.ə]/ and pronounced as /[əʊ̯.ə]/ are words with the suffix "-er", such as player and lower. Other instances are loanwords, such as boa.
pronounced as /[aʊ̯ə̯, aɪ̯ə̯, ɔɪ̯ə̯]/ are sometimes written as (IPA|awə, ajə, ɔjə), or similarly.
The last two are mostly restricted to European Spanish. In Latin American Spanish (which has no distinct vosotros form), the corresponding words are cambian pronounced as /ˈkambi̯an/ and cambien pronounced as /ˈkambi̯en/, with a rising-opening diphthong followed by a nasal stop and initial, rather than final stress. In phonology, pronounced as /[u̯ei̯, u̯ai̯, i̯ai̯, i̯ei̯]/ are analyzed as a monosyllabic sequence of three vowels: pronounced as //uei, uai, iai, iei//. In, those triphthongs are transcribed (IPA|wej, waj, jaj, jej): pronounced as /es/, pronounced as /es/, pronounced as /es/, pronounced as /es/