Research on properties of phonetics can be divided into two categories. The first is articulatory phonetics, which studies the speech organs and pronunciation processes of human sounds, with a focus on the voiced elements of the language. The second is acoustic phonetics, which concentrates on the sounds produced during speech. The purpose of acoustic phonetics is to comprehend the acoustic properties of speech and how it is perceived by the listener’s ears.
Accents in languages refer to the distinctive way people pronounce words and sounds based on their regional or social background. Accents can vary widely, even within the same language, and are influenced by factors such as geography, culture, and historical background. Different regions or countries often have their own unique accents, and within a country, there can be multiple accents based on specific regions or cities. Accents can affect the pronunciation of vowels, consonants, intonation, and rhythm of speech. They are an integral part of a language’s diversity and can contribute to the rich tapestry of linguistic expressions.
In linguistics, a “click” refers to a speech sound that is produced by creating a closure in the oral cavity and then releasing it, causing a sharp sound. Click consonants are found in some African and Native American languages, such as Xhosa, Zulu, and various Khoisan languages. These languages use clicks as regular speech sounds and incorporate them into their phonetic systems. Clicks are quite rare in the world’s languages and are a distinctive feature of these specific language families.
In languages, a consonant is a speech sound characterized by the closure or partial closure of the vocal tract, restricting the airflow. Unlike vowels, which are produced with an open vocal tract, consonants involve some degree of obstruction, creating distinct sounds in spoken language.
A consonant is a speech sound made with your mouth fairly closed. Many consonant sounds are voiced. Voiceless sounds do not have the vibration of the vocal cords.
Diacritics are marks or symbols added to letters to indicate various phonetic or linguistic characteristics in a language. These marks can change the pronunciation, stress, tone, or meaning of the letter. For example, in English, the diaeresis (¨) is a diacritic often used in words like “coöperate” to indicate that each ‘o’ is pronounced separately. Diacritics are commonly found in many languages around the world and serve to modify the sounds or meanings of the letters they are attached to.
Diphthongs are complex vowel sounds in which a speaker glides from one vowel sound to another within the same syllable. Unlike monophthongs, which are single, pure vowel sounds, diphthongs are a combination of two vowel sounds produced in a single, continuous sound. Examples of diphthongs in English include the vowel sound in “coin” (/oi/) and the vowel sound in “loud” (/au/).
In phonology, a mora (plural morae or moras; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ba consists of one mora (monomoraic), while a long syllable such as baa consists of two (bimoraic); extra-long syllables with three moras (trimoraic) are relatively rare. Such metrics are also referred to as syllable weight.
In linguistics, multiple tones refer to languages or dialects in which words are distinguished not only by pitch level (high or low tone) but also by the contour or pattern of pitch changes within a syllable. In such languages, the pitch patterns can convey different meanings, and the same syllable pronounced with different tones or tone contours can have different meanings. Tone languages, like Mandarin Chinese and Yoruba, often utilize multiple tones to convey distinct words or grammatical features.
Phonology is the study of the way sounds function in languages, including phonemes, syllable structure, stress, accent, intonation, and which sounds are distinctive units within a language.
In phonetics, rhythm is the sense of movement in speech, marked by the stress, timing, and quantity of syllables. Adjective: rhythmic. In poetics, rhythm is the recurring alternation of strong and weak elements in the flow of sound and silence in sentences or lines of verse. The rhythm produced by the combination of stressed and unstressed syllables is a major characteristic of spoken language and makes it a stress-timed language.
In linguistics, stress refers to the emphasis or prominence placed on a particular syllable or word within a sentence. It can affect the overall meaning and rhythm of speech. Different languages have varying rules for where stress falls within words, and linguists study these patterns to understand the phonological structure of languages.
In linguistics, strident vowels refer to a type of vowel sound that has a high intensity noise component, similar to the hissing sound of the English “s” or “sh” consonants. However, it’s important to note that strident vowels are not a common or established concept in mainstream linguistics. Vowels themselves are typically characterized by qualities such as height (high, mid, low), backness (front, central, back), and roundedness, rather than by the presence of noise.
In linguistics, tones refer to the use of pitch patterns in a language to distinguish between different meanings of words or phrases. Languages with tones are called tonal languages. In tonal languages, changing the pitch contour of a word can change its meaning, even if the pronunciation of the consonants and vowels remains the same. Tones are used in various ways across different languages and can be a crucial aspect of communication in tonal language communities.
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (length). They are usually voiced and are closely involved in prosodic variation such as tone, intonation and stress. A vowel is usually made with your mouth fairly open.
There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one phonetic and the other phonological.
- In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English “ah” /ɑː/ or “oh” /oʊ/, produced with an open vocal tract; it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth), frictionless and continuant.[4] There is no significant build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis.
- The phonetic definition of “vowel” (i.e. a sound produced with no constriction in the vocal tract) does not always match the phonological definition (i.e. a sound that forms the peak of a syllable).
Some suggested the term “vocoid” for a phonetic vowel and “vowel” for a phonological vowel.
Others think semivowels are produced with a narrower constriction of the vocal tract than vowels, and so may be considered consonants on that basis.
Daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the features of tongue height (vertical dimension), tongue backness (horizontal dimension) and roundedness (lip articulation).
In close vowels, also known as high vowels, such as [i] and [u], the first formant is consistent with the tongue being positioned close to the palate, high in the mouth, whereas in open vowels, also known as low vowels, such as [a].
Basically, only the terms ‘open vowel’ and ‘close vowel’ are used, as ‘high’ and ‘low’ refer to the position of the tongue.
Vowels can be subcategorized as:
- Height,
- Backness,
- Roundedness,
- Front; raised and retracted,
- Nasalization,
- Phonation,
- Tenseness,
- Tongue root position,
- Secondary narrowings in the vocal tract,
- Rhotic vowels,
- Reduced vowels.
In linguistics, a syllable is a unit of sound that is typically made up of a vowel sound and any accompanying consonant sounds. Syllables are the building blocks of words and help determine the rhythm and structure of spoken language. For example, the word “hello” has two syllables: “hel-lo.” Syllables are important in various aspects of linguistics, including phonology, phonetics, and morphology.
In linguistics, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can change the meaning of a word. Phonemes are distinct from letters, as a single letter or combination of letters can represent one or more phonemes. For example, the words “pat” and “bat” differ in meaning because of the initial phonemes /p/ and /b/. These two sounds are distinct phonemes in English, as changing one to the other can create a new word. Phonemes vary between languages, and the study of phonemes and their patterns is a fundamental aspect of phonology, a subfield of linguistics.