Phonetics

A vowel () is a speech sound pronounced without any in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, loudness, and length. They are usually voiced and are closely involved in prosodic variation such as tone, intonation and stress. The nucleus, or "center", of a syllable typically consists of a vowel sound (though this is not always the case).

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that mainly concerns the articulation and perception of speech sounds. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines: articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics. Linguists who specialize in studying these physical properties of talking or signing are phoneticians. Traditionally, the minimal linguistic unit of phonetics is the phone or a speech sound. It differs from the minimal linguistic unit of phonology, which is a phoneme. Phonemes are abstract categorizations of phones and are defined as the smallest

A phoneme () is a set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages contain phonemes (or the spatial–gestural equivalent in sign languages), and all spoken languages include both consonant and vowel phonemes. Phonemes are studied under phonology, a branch of linguistics (a discipline encompassing language, writing, speech and related matters).

The larynx (: larynges or larynxes), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in respiration, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of the larynx into the pharynx, known as the laryngeal inlet, is about 4–5 centimeters in diameter. The larynx houses the vocal cords, and manipulates pitch and volume, which is essential for phonation. It is situated just below where the tract of the pharynx splits into the trachea and the esophagus.

sound made by a human being using the vocal tract

thumb|American English pronunciation of "no highway cowboys" , showing five diphthongs:

Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. In American Sign Language, pronunciation describes how a sign is constructed.

in linguistics, relative emphasis given to a syllable or other speech element

thumb|A simplified procedure to determine whether two sounds represent the same or different phonemes. The cases on the extreme left and the extreme right are those in which the sounds are allophones.|class=skin-invert-image

phonological process in linguistics

folds of throat tissues that help to create sounds through vocalization

representing spoken language in written form

basic unit of sound in speech

configuration and interaction of the articulators when making a speech sound

place in the vocal tract where a consonant is articulated

part of linguistics concerned with elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments, but properties of syllables and larger units of speech

strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or closure of some obstruents

Diction ( (nom. ), "a saying, expression, word"), in its original meaning, is a writer's or speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a piece of writing such as a poem or story. In its common meaning, it is the distinctiveness of speech: the art of speaking so that each word is clearly heard and understood to its fullest complexity and extremity, and concerns pronunciation and tone, rather than word choice and style. This is more precisely and commonly expressed with the term enunciation or with its synonym, articulation.

The glottis (: glottises or glottides) is the middle region of the larynx, where the vocal folds are located. Within this region is the opening between the vocal folds (the rima glottidis). The glottis is crucial in producing sound from the vocal folds.

In phonetics, nasalisation (or nasalization in American English) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .

occurrence of two vowel sounds in adjacent syllables, with no intervening consonant

term used in phonetics and phonology related to vocal cord vibration

way of pronouncing a consonant in which part of the tongue is moved close to the hard palate

In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from gemini 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from stress. Gemination is represented in many writing systems by a doubled letter and is often perceived as a doubling of the consonant. Some phonological theories use 'doubling' as a synonym for gemination, while others describe two distinct phenomena.

subfield of phonetics that studies how humans produce speech sounds via the interaction of physiological structures

class of lateral and rhotic sounds

In phonetics, a triphthong ( , ) (from Greek , ) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third. While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulator position, diphthongs have two and triphthongs three.

group of consonants which have no intervening vowel

Fable by Aesop

Forvo.com ( ) is a website that allows access to, and playback of, pronunciation sound clips in many different languages to facilitate language learning. Forvo.com was first envisioned in 2007 by co-founder Israel Rondón, and came to fruition in 2008. Forvo.com is owned by Forvo Media SL, based in San Sebastián, Spain. It claims on its "about" page to be the largest pronunciation guide website on the Internet. It has been listed among the 50 best websites of 2013 by Time.

Velarization or velarisation is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four diacritics: A tilde or swung dash through the letter covers velarization, uvularization and pharyngealization, as in (the velarized equivalent of ) A superscript Latin gamma after the letter standing for the velarized consonant, as in (a velarized ) To distinguish velarization from a velar fricative release, may be used instead of , as in A s

in phonology, changes in the acoustic quality of sounds which are perceived as "weakening"

Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal cords are abducted so that they do not vibrate; air passes between the arytenoid cartilages to create audible turbulence during speech. Supralaryngeal articulation remains the same as in normal speech.

subfield of phonetics that deals with acoustic aspects of speech sounds

duration of a vowel sound

In linguistics, synaeresis (; also spelled syneresis) is a phonological process of sound change in which two adjacent vowels within a word are combined into a single syllable.

Pharyngealization or pharyngealisation is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.

Praat ( ; ) is a free, open-source computer software package widely used for speech analysis and synthesis in phonetics and other fields of linguistics. The software was developed and is maintained by Paul Boersma and David Weenink at the University of Amsterdam, and is compatible most major operating systems, including Unix, Linux, Mac, and Microsoft Windows. Praat has been used in linguistic research on endangered and minority languages, as well as for analyzing regional accents and phonetic variation.

Coarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound. There are two types of coarticulation: anticipatory coarticulation, when a feature or characteristic of a speech sound is anticipated (assumed) during the production of a preceding speech sound; and carryover or perseverative coarticulation, when the effects of a sound are seen during the production of sound(s) that follow. Many models have been developed to account for coarticulation. They include the look-ahead

In linguistics, assibilation is a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is a form of spirantization and is commonly the final phase of palatalization.

consonant formed with tongue between the teeth

thumb|upright=1.25|A page from the Yajnavalkya Shiksha manuscript (Sanskrit, Devanagari). This text is also called Vajasaneyi Shiksha and Traisvarya Lakshana.

involuntary tendency of speakers to increase their vocal effort when in loud environments

orthography in which the graphemes correspond to the phonemes of the language

series of obstruent consonants in Semitic languages, which originally contrasted with series of both voiced and voiceless obstruents; may be realized as uvularized or pharyngealized, velarized, ejective, or plain voiced or voiceless

schematic arrangement of the vowels

thumb|"An accomplished elocutionist", an illustration of elocutionist performing an open-air recitation, published in The Strand Magazine in 1891|alt=A man in a hat recites with his hand raised upwards. Two children watch.

Isochrony is a linguistic analysis or hypothesis assuming that any spoken language's utterances are divisible into equal rhythmic portions of some kind. Under this assumption, languages are proposed to broadly fall into one of two categories based on rhythm or timing: syllable-timed or stress-timed languages (or, in some analyses, a third category: mora-timed languages). However, empirical studies have been unable to directly or fully support the hypothesis, so the concept remains controversial in linguistics. While isochrony may be a useful theoretical framework in some contexts, studies sugg

Phones that involve pushing air out through the body breathing cavities

Stød (, also occasionally spelled stod in English) is a suprasegmental unit of Danish phonology (represented in non-standard IPA as ), which in its most common form is a kind of creaky voice (laryngealization), but it may also be realized as a glottal stop, especially in emphatic pronunciation. Some dialects of Southern Danish realize stød in a way that is more similar to the tonal word accents of Norwegian and Swedish. In much of Zealand it is regularly realized as reminiscent of a glottal stop. A probably unrelated glottal stop, with quite different distribution rules, occurs in Western Jutl

obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized

feature of the production of stop consonants

science of the sounds of language

phonological process where voiced obstruents become voiceless before voiceless consonants or in pausa; occurs in Catalan, German, Dutch, Breton, Russian, Turkish, Wolof, etc.; e.g.: German Bad [baːt] > Bäder [ˈbɛːdɐ]; Turkish çicek > çiçeği

In phonetics, a diphone is an adjacent pair of phones in an utterance. For example, in [daɪfəʊn], the diphones are [da], [aɪ], [ɪf], [fə], [əʊ], [ʊn]. The term is usually used to refer to a recording of the transition between two phones.

In phonetics, a continuant is a speech sound produced without a complete closure in the oral cavity. By one definition, continuant is a distinctive feature that refers to any sound produced with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract, thus encompassing all sounds (including vowels) except nasals, plosives and affricates. By another definition, it refers exclusively to consonantal sounds produced with an incomplete closure of the oral cavity, prototypically approximants and fricatives, but sometimes also trills.

smallest temporally discrete unit identifiable in speech

(also ; ) is a phenomenon in Arabic comprising the fronting and raising of Old Arabic toward or , and the old short toward . and the factors conditioning its occurrence were described for the first time by Sibawayh. According to as-Sirafi and Ibn Jinni (10th century), the vowel of the was pronounced somewhere between and , suggesting a realization of .

a sound made while inhaling by the nose or mouth

Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonants usually involves complete closure of the glottis; another way to describe this phenomenon is to say that a glottal stop is made simultaneously with another consonant. In certain cases, the glottal stop can even wholly replace the voiceless consonant. The term 'glottalized' is also used for ejective and implosive consonants; see glottalic consonant f