phoneme

American  

[foh-neem] / ˈfoʊ nim /

noun

Linguistics.

1. any of a small set of units, usually about 20 to 60 in number, and different for each language, considered to be the basic distinctive units of speech sound by which morphemes, words, and sentences are represented. They are arrived at for any given language by determining which differences in sound function to indicate a difference in meaning, so that in English the difference in sound and meaning between pit and bit is taken to indicate the existence of different labial phonemes, while the difference in sound between the unaspirated p of spun and the aspirated p of pun, since it is never the only distinguishing feature between two different words, is not taken as ground for setting up two different p phonemes in English.

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phoneme British  

/ ˈfəʊniːm /

noun

1. linguistics one of the set of speech sounds in any given language that serve to distinguish one word from another. A phoneme may consist of several phonetically distinct articulations, which are regarded as identical by native speakers, since one articulation may be substituted for another without any change of meaning. Thus /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes in English because they distinguish such words as pet and bet, whereas the light and dark /l/ sounds in little are not separate phonemes since they may be transposed without changing meaning

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Usage

What is a phoneme? A phoneme is the most basic unit of a speech sound in a language. A speech sound must be distinct from other speech sounds to be considered a phoneme. You can think of phonemes as the building blocks of spoken language. We make different words by combining different sounds, or phonemes, together. In English, we have phonemes made from both consonants and vowels. For example, the word fan consists of three sounds, /f/ /a/ /n/, with the /f/ and /n/ being consonant sounds and /a/ being a vowel sound. In written language, a phoneme can be represented by a single letter or multiple letters. For example, in the word rain, the a and i together represent the long /a/ sound. Go, bow, and though each use a different number of letters to represent the same /oh/ phoneme (o, ow, and ough).

Etymology

Origin of phoneme

First recorded in 1890–95; from French phonème, from Greek phṓnēma “sound,” equivalent to phōnē-, verbal stem of phōneîn “to make a sound” (derivative of phonḗ “sound, voice”) + -ma noun suffix denoting result of action

Compare meaning

How does phoneme compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• phoneme vs. allophone
• morpheme vs. phoneme

Explanation

The very smallest unit of sound in any language is called a phoneme. Changing a phoneme in a word changes the way that word is pronounced, as well as its meaning. In English, phonemes include short and long vowels, consonants, and other sounds like th and sp. The distinct sounds associated with each of the 44 phonemes in English help to differentiate words and give clues to their meaning and pronunciation. The word phoneme was coined in 1889 from the French phonème, which came from the Greek phōnēma, "a sound made."

Example Sentences

According to Rendell, the evidence shows whales are mainly repeating the same phoneme over and over again instead of actually combining varieties of phonemes into complex words.

From Salon • Aug. 23, 2024

For example, 'my' and 'lie' have the same phoneme at the end, but different graphemes.

From Science Daily • Nov. 27, 2023

The researchers measured accuracy and speed in rearranging phoneme sequences, and they obtained structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging recordings.

From Scientific American • Oct. 12, 2023

After that, if you’re going to say, for example, the word “hello,” it knows how you would say hello, how every little phoneme might sound.

From Slate • Mar. 24, 2023

Each letter related to a single basic sound, or phoneme.

From New York Times • Nov. 9, 2022