[tmtvl]

Some thoughts from a Flem:

I was taught that the letter y is called "ypsilon" (pronounced "ipsilon") and met a fair few people who call it "ygrec". It seems like people here used to call it "Griekse ij" but that nomenclature fell out of favour.

The combinations "ei" and "ij" make the same sound, and we tend to call them respectively "korte (short) ei" and "lange (long) ij", though there is no difference in pronunciation between, for example, "leiden" (to lead) and "lijden" (to suffer).

I personally wouldn't consider "ij" to be a single letter any more than I would consider "ei", "eu", or "ui" to be a single letter. Though unlike the author I would prefer spacing out the letters individually as:

  r e i s t i j d

rather than:

  r ei s t ij d

even though I have noticed crossword puzzles tend to put "ij" (and only "ij") in a single square.

[throwaway_4638]

Actually there is a (nearly imperceptible) difference between the pronunciation of ei and ij, at least in my local region. For the "ij" sound the tongue is pushed into a slightly narrower bowl in the middle, while on the "ei" sound there is no tension on the tongue at all.

[wjnc]

For me as well. Dutch Brabant. The ‘ei’ has a shorter tongue movement than the ‘ij’. I’ve tried several words and my tongue doesn’t reach my bottom jaw as hard in ‘ei’ as in ‘ij’. Can’t hear myself though. “In Leiden lijden lijsters leidzaam.” First and last feel more alike than the middle two.

I do love these minute and local details of linguistics and history. We look at Chinese as a hard language because of the sounds influencing meaning while having (trivially!) nuanced examples as well.

Don’t get me started on Greek / Roman / Germanic heritage of words and sounds. I love this.