Phonemics

The study of basic sound units (phonemes)

• phone = the smallest sound of a language
  
  
• phonemes are sounds that make a difference for meaning in a language

• phone = “sound”
  • telephone
  • megaphone
    
    
• sounds in language follow a pattern
  • Tzotzil : Tzeltal
  • Bangu : Ngbatu
  • click sounds: !Kung
  • ? in Anishinabe (Chippewa)
    
    
• some languages have only a few basic sounds
  • e.g., Hawaiian
    
    
• others have many more
  • e.g., Kwakiutl
    
    
• rarely are there more than 45 or 50 phonemes
  
  
• no language uses all of the possible phonemes
  
  
• sounds are conventionally divided into vowels and consonants
  
  
• there are classes of sounds
  • stopped
  • nazalized
  • continued (syllabate)
  • trilled
    
    
• “minimal pair”
  • two “utterances” (words) that differ in only one sound
    
    
    • pit / bit
      unvoiced / voiced
      
      
    • these / those
      unvoiced / voiced

languistics index page

• Naur, yeah: Australia, you’re performing linguistic magic when you pronounce the two-letter word ‘no’. Here’s why -- Guardian (13 December 2022)
  
  
• The people who study the meaning of nonsense -- BBCfuture (07 September 2016)
  
  
• Words, More Words ... and Statistics -- ScienceDaily (17 May 2016)
  
  
• Do We Judge Distance Based on How a Word Sounds? -- EurekAlert (18 April 2016)
  
  
• Human sounds convey emotions clearer and faster than words -- ScienceDaily (18 January 2016)
  
  
• Phablets and Fauxhawks: The Linguistic Secrets of a Good Blended Word -- Guardian (29 May 2015)
  
  
• Tracing Languages Back to Their Common Ancestors Through the Statistics of Sound Shifts -- Science Daily (19 February 2015)
  
  
• Universal syllables: Some innate preferences shape the sound of words from birth -- Science Daily (01 April 2014)

• Information Theory Counts Size Of Animal Languages -- Inside Science (13 September 2013)
  
  
• Language Guide -- LanguageGuide.org
  
  
• North American English Dialects, Based on Pronunciation Patterns -- The Aschmann clan, Rick Aschmann
  
  
• Speech Accent Archive -- George Mason University
  
  
• The Truth Behind Thick Accents: Foreigners Judged Less Truthful -- ABC News (28 July 2010)
  
  
• When the Accent Is on Creating a Good Impression -- Guardian (16 December 2010)