In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are y and w in yes and west, respectively. Written /j w/ in IPA, y and w are near to the vowels ee and oo in seen and moon, written /iː uː/ in IPA. The term glide may alternatively refer to any type of transitional sound, not necessarily a semivowel.
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Glide (linguistics) in the context of Matres lectionis
A mater lectionis (/ˌmeɪtər ˌlɛktiˈoʊnɪs/ MAY-tər LEK-tee-OH-niss, /ˌmɑːtər -/ MAH-tər -; Latin for 'mother of reading', pl. matres lectionis /ˌmɑːtreɪs -/ MAH-trayss -; original Hebrew: אֵם קְרִיאָה, romanized: ʾēm qərîʾāh) is any consonant letter that is used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing of Semitic languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac. The letters that do this in Hebrew are aleph א, he ה, vav ו and yud י, with the latter two in particular being more often vowels than they are consonants. In Arabic, the matres lectionis (though they are much less often referred to thus) are ʾalif ا, wāw و and yāʾ ي.
The original value of the matres lectionis corresponds closely to what are called in modern linguistics glides or semivowels.