Diphthongs

Diphthong comes from the Greek word diphthongos which means "having two sounds". Notice the di- for "double." So diphthongs are double vowel sounds in words like late, ride, or pout. If two vowels in a row are the same, as in boot or beer, then it's not a diphthong. Linguists, scholars who study language, analyze diphthongs, which differ from language to language. Ironically, the word diphthong has no diphthongs.