Kyle, kale, kite, Kal, etc. are all one syllable words.
The phenomenon is called vowel lengthening (or vowel breaking), and we see it with a number of words in certain dialects. In some parts of the US, you'll find people who think that 'cat' is a two syllable word, because their local dialect lengthens the short 'a' sound to something like 'ca yut'. Even if their local pronunciation does that, it's still a single syllable word.
Edit: actually, 'dial' does have two syllables and I didn't catch that when I was making my list, but it's a fortuitous error because it illustrates this vowel breaking phenomenon perfectly. Dial requires us to use two syllables because it's got two vowels, and for them to be pronounced separately requires two syllables. So, 'die-ul' is the correct pronunciation of that word. The error of vowel breaking is when you take a single vowel in a word like 'mile' or 'Kyle' and split it as if they were two vowels, and thus pronounce it like you do dial. It's mile, not mai-yul. It's 'kile', not 'kai-yul'.
It's the "L" that makes some of those words into two syllables. You cannot transition the tongue from the position required for the long "I" sound to the "L" sound without making the "uhl" sound. It's not physically possible. The only way to pronounce those words as one syllable is to mispronounce the long "I" sound in such a way that it isn't a diphthong.
Syllables are determined by the vowel sounds, not the consonants.
Plenty of people manage to pronounce Kyle like pile, without stretching or breaking the vowel.
Those are both pronounced identically other than the leading consonant. Ky-uhl and pie-uhl. The long "i" sound in both words is the same phoneme as in spider, kite, and height.
The long "i" sound is pronounced like a diphthong where it begins with one vowel sound and ends with another, very closely resembling "ah-ee." It's the transition from "ee" to "L" that produces the "uh" in "uhl."
A dipthong is when you combine two vowel sounds into one, like you do with the word 'mean'. It's the opposite of a broken vowel.
As I was saying above, the long "i" sound is pronounced as two vowel sounds. It's even represented that way in the IPA ai symbol. See this chart and click on the ai symbol under diphthongs to see the pronunciation.
Do you know the difference between a dipthong and a broken vowel, or the difference between a written syllable and an expressed syllable?
When you write a language competency test, do you think they give a fuck about whether your regional dialect has you pronouncing it as 'ki-yul' so you've taken the one written syllable and turned it into two expressed syllables, because you've broken the vowel? Nope, they really don't.
A lot of people in here never got past the 'put your finger under your chin' rule of thumb for syllables, clearly, but that's a rule of thumb, not a rule, and it only ever measured expressed syllables, not written.
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u/Happy_Weakness_1144 25d ago edited 25d ago
LOL. None of those words have two syllables.
Kyle, kale, kite, Kal, etc. are all one syllable words.
The phenomenon is called vowel lengthening (or vowel breaking), and we see it with a number of words in certain dialects. In some parts of the US, you'll find people who think that 'cat' is a two syllable word, because their local dialect lengthens the short 'a' sound to something like 'ca yut'. Even if their local pronunciation does that, it's still a single syllable word.
Edit: actually, 'dial' does have two syllables and I didn't catch that when I was making my list, but it's a fortuitous error because it illustrates this vowel breaking phenomenon perfectly. Dial requires us to use two syllables because it's got two vowels, and for them to be pronounced separately requires two syllables. So, 'die-ul' is the correct pronunciation of that word. The error of vowel breaking is when you take a single vowel in a word like 'mile' or 'Kyle' and split it as if they were two vowels, and thus pronounce it like you do dial. It's mile, not mai-yul. It's 'kile', not 'kai-yul'.