Abstract
In the modern phonetic and phonology of Standard German the term «diphthong» is understood as a gliding sound that consists of two vowels pronounced in one syllable. In German there are 3 falling (descending) diphthongs that have a lot of variants of their graphic image. A genesis of diphthongs begins in the Indo-European period and their further development and change are due to many phonetic processes (diphthongization, monophthongization, phoneme junction, phoneme separation). The article presents an analysis of diphthongs which was based on the material of text of the Old and Middle High German periods. Causes and trends of vowel combinations have been established. From the point of view of the genesis of vowel sounds, the monophthongs are primary, and diphthongs are secondary and the latter act as a building material at the appearance of words and perform a certain grammatical and phonetic (constitutive) functions. All diphthongs were divided into groups and their qualitative characteristics were described and analyzed. The results have shown a direct correlation between the time of the genesis of diphthongs and their frequency of the use in the German texts.
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