§ 3 The Dipthongs
ei (eu) in height, aisle, German ei, with the initial ‘a’ (italic) of Mr. Ellis (in his Early English Pronunciation), ‘eu’ has the same power in PG.
ai in boy, oil; somewhat rare, but present in the names Boyer, Moyer (from Meyer), ai (G. ei) egg; ajǝr (aajǝr, aijǝr) eggs; hai (G. heu) hay; bai (sounding like E. boy, and from E.) pie; wai (G. weihe) hawk. Literary German has it in ‘bäume’ trees, and ‘eu’ (which is properly ǝi) is usually confounded with it in German.
ǝi, which Mr. Ellis (ibid.) gives as the power of English ‘ai’ (aisle) in London, occurs in the PG. exclamation ‘hǝi,’ used in driving cows, and naturalised in the vicinal English. Slavonic has (in German spelling) huj, and Hungarian hü, used in driving swine. Compare Schmidt, Westerwäld. Idiot., p. 276.
au in house; G. haus, PG. haus. English ‘ou’ is thus pronounced in adopted words like ‘County,’ or ‘Caunty,’ ‘Township’ or ‘Taunschip.’
Care must be taken not to confound the initial of these pairs, for G. and PG. ‘eis’ (ice) and ‘aus’ (out) have the same initial vowel, while ‘aistǝr’ would spell oyster.