Definitions for phonemes
pho·nemes

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1. phonemes

   In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west of England, the sound patterns (sin) and (sing) are two separate words that are distinguished by the substitution of one phoneme, /n/, for another phoneme, /ŋ/. Two words like this that differ in meaning through the contrast of a single phoneme form a minimal pair. If, in another language, any two sequences differing only by pronunciation of the final sounds [n] or [ŋ] are perceived as being the same in meaning, then these two sounds are interpreted as phonetic variants of a single phoneme in that language. Phonemes that are established by the use of minimal pairs, such as tap vs tab or pat vs bat, are written between slashes: /p/, /b/. To show pronunciation, linguists use square brackets: [pʰ] (indicating an aspirated p in pat). There are differing views as to exactly what phonemes are and how a given language should be analyzed in phonemic (or phonematic) terms. However, a phoneme is generally regarded as an abstraction of a set (or equivalence class) of speech sounds (phones) that are perceived as equivalent to each other in a given language. For example, the English k sounds in the words kill and skill are not identical (as described below), but they are distributional variants of a single phoneme /k/. Speech sounds that differ but do not create a meaningful change in the word are known as allophones of the same phoneme. Allophonic variation may be conditioned, in which case a certain phoneme is realized as a certain allophone in particular phonological environments, or it may otherwise be free, and may vary by speaker or by dialect. Therefore, phonemes are often considered to constitute an abstract underlying representation for segments of words, while speech sounds make up the corresponding phonetic realization, or the surface form.

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1. phonemesnoun

   Plural noun of the word phoneme.

   The phonemes are the small set of units considered to the basic units of speech sounds.

   
   

   Submitted by MaryC on July 9, 2016  

Anagrams for phonemes »

1. phenomes

How to pronounce phonemes?

1. Alex

   US English

   David

   US English

   Mark

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Libby

   British

   Mia

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Hayley

   Australian

   Natasha

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

   Priya

   Indian

   Neerja

   Indian

   Zira

   US English

   Oliver

   British

   Wendy

   British

   Fred

   US English

   Tessa

   South African

How to say phonemes in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of phonemes in Chaldean Numerology is: 6

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of phonemes in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5

Examples of phonemes in a Sentence

1. Alex Quilici:

   Building a fake computer voice right now is a decent amount of work, if I wanted to build one that sounded like you, for example, I'd need to get a ton of samples of you saying specific phonemes, and train a computer model on that.

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References

1. ^ Wikipedia
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemes