Learn English – the phonetic term for consecutive sounded vowels

phoneticssyllablesterminologyvowels

I am interested for the term used when instances of two consecutive vowels sounds are in different syllables, such as:

thrOUGHOUt, abbrevIAtion, immedIAte, barrIER, cOExist, promiscUIty, crEAte, pallIAtive, amIAble etc

Best Answer

This is called hiatus: two consecutive vowel sounds in separate syllables; as opposed to diphthong, two consecutive vowel sounds in the same syllable. In hiatus, the vowel sounds need not be different, though it is rare for language to actually distinguish between two hiatus of the same vowel, and a long vowel: e.g., [e.e] vs. [ee]

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