[Facts] Re: Eileen and Aileen
ok, remember there is not really a commonly recognized long a sound in English. what you mean I think is the diphthong /ei/ or /ej/ as in bay, whereas long a: is the sound in farther. confused? the sound you refer to as in Eileen is presumably /ai/ or /aj/ or /ʌi/, which is mistakenly called long i. This is partly due to vowel shifts in English which have not entirely been reflected in spelling and are not fully realised in all dialects.