Talk:Ea
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Hi Bob - what a great wiki you have. I'm not an English teacher and don't feel it appropriate for me to do any editing, because I don't know the correct orthography or context, so if this is of use you could assign it out or update it yourself. You may not consider it relevant but here goes ... the result of a word-search game I played with a friend. Your page on "pronunciation of 'ea'" lists eleven ways to pronounce this very productive combination:
Monophthongs:
- ee /iː/ bean, meat, dream
- eh /e/ bread, jealous, measure
- uh /ə/ sergeant, nausea, ocean
- uuh /ɜː/ heard, earn, early
- ah /ɑː/ heart, forearm, firearm
Diphthongs:
- ee-uh /iːə/ meal, theatre, laureate, reappraise, beatific, linear, protean
- eh-ee /eiː/ great, Rea, limeade
- ih-uh /ɪə/ clear, fear, beard
- eh-uh /eə/ pear, bear, wear
- ee-aaeh /iːæ/ reality, oleaginous
Triphthong:
- ee-eh-ee /iːeiː/ create, reagent
Plus a pronunciation that is strictly a combining form, ee-oo /iːuː/, as in beauty ... although not its mate, oh /əʊ/BrE /oʊ/,AmE as in beau.
I think this is a very incomplete list ... and a fuller list could provide a useful example to students of how crazily MANY ways some letter combinations can be pronounced in English. You could add at least 12 others:
Monothongs:
- ih /ɪ/ mileage, acreage
- aaeh /æ/ poleaxe
- aw /ɔː/ Sean
Diphthongs:
- ee-ah /iːɑː/ rearm
- ee-aw /iːɔː/ realter
- ee-aeh [iːæ̠] meander, reanimate, preamble [priːæ̠mbl̩] (feel your mouth ... this is slightly less open than ee-aaeh /iːæ/ as in reality /riːælətiː/)
- ee-ih /iːɪ/ lineage
- eh-aeh [ɛæ̠] yeah
Triphthongs:
- eh-ee-ah /eiːɑː/ seance, realpolitik
- eh-ee-aaeh /eiːæ/ beatitude, cineaste
- ee-eh-uh /iːeə/ linearity
- eh-ee-uh /eiːə/ hosea
Best wishes, Sam Lowry, Portland, OR <samlowry____@hot______.c__>
- This is very interesting and I'll add some of your suggestions. Our words must be relatively common. This means that "cineaste" and "hosea" won't make it, but "lineage" and "yeah" will.
