DIFFERENCES between DIPTONGOS and HIATOS

Surely you have wondered more than once what is the importance of knowing the difference between diphthong and hiatus. Well, the answer is very simple. Words are divided into syllables and these in turn are distinguished from each other depending on which of them receives the accent or blow of voice; that is, the stressed syllable in front of the rest, which are the unstressed syllables. To be able to identify which is the stressed syllable of a word, it is necessary to know the different vowel combinations that exist in Spanish, and, therefore, to know the difference between diphthong and hiatus. In a teacher we explain what diphthongs, hiatuses are and how to differentiate one from the other easily and with examples.

The Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (DRAE) defines diphthongas the "sequence of two different vowels that are pronounced in a single syllable". The formation of diphthongs in Spanish takes place by joining, within the same syllable, the following vowel combinations:

• A closed or weak vowel (i, u) + an open or strong vowel (a, e, o): old man, caress, comedy, fire, ice, fear, piano, louse, earth, wind.
• An open or strong vowel (a, e, o) + a closed or weak vowel (i, u): air, aurora, automobile, beret, eucalyptus, european, landscape, comb, kingdom, meeting.
• Two closed or weak vowels (i, u): attribute, circuit, citizen, care, constituted, jesuit, judgment, noise, ruin, triumph.

Examples of diphthongs

So that you finish better understanding what a diphthong is, here we are going to discover some examples of diphthongs that will help you:

• Triunfar
• Saijoin
• PEUnte
• Turbio
• Cleanar
• PEUrta
• Cuota
• Etc.

In front of the diphthong, the hiatus is constituted from the sequence of two vowels that are pronounced in different syllables. The following vowel combinations correspond, from a phonetic point of view, to the different types of hiatus:

• An unstressed open or strong vowel (a, e, o) + a closed vowel or weak tonic (i, u): abstracted, trunk, fall, heroism, lute, corn, country, laugh, root, passerby.
• A closed or weakly stressed vowel (i, u) + an unstressed open or strong vowel (a, e, o): accent, biology, owl, cockatoo, duo, cold, frowning, mary, laugh, knew.
• Two open vowels (a, e, o) different: aorta, cluck, fall, clot, ethereal, laudable, dizzy, pawn, poet, theater.
• Two equal vowels: basil,alcohol, orange blossom, shiite, cooperate, dehesa, duunviro, read, possess, Saavedra.

Examples of hiatuses

We are going to offer you several hiatus examples that will help you reinforce this lesson and better understand what a hiatus really is:

• Baúl
• Cyears
• Maiz
• Lio
• Caer
• Cyearba
• Teanot
• Cacyear
• Etc.

As we have seen previously, the main difference between a diphthong and a hiatus is that the first is based on the union of two vowels in the same syllable while the hiatus supposes the separation of both vowels in two different syllables.

The hiatus originates when the diphthong is broken, which may well happen because the closed or weak vowel (i, u) is accentuated (fall, made, laugh, corn) or because both vowels are open or strong (a, e, o), which leads to the disappearance of the diphthong and the emergence of a hiatus (occur, village, ugliness, sled).

We have to bear in mind that one of the fundamental conditions for the existence of a diphthong is that the vowel sequence necessarily has to be pronounced as a single sound within the same syllable. For this reason, the combination of two strong vowels is not an example of diphthong, but of hiatus (wish, hero, pyrenees, theorem).

In this other video lesson from a Teacher we explain in an easy way the accentuation of diphthongs and hiatuses.