foneemes

Foneemes are the smallest units of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another. They are abstract mental representations of sounds, not the actual physical sounds themselves. For example, the words "pat" and "bat" differ by only one foneeme, the initial consonant sound. The foneemes themselves are /p/ and /b/.

The foneemic system of a language is what allows speakers to differentiate between thousands of words using a relatively small set of distinct sounds. While a language might have many possible vowel and consonant sounds, only a subset of these function as foneemes. Not all variations in pronunciation necessarily create a new foneeme. For instance, the slight aspiration of the /p/ sound in "pin" compared to the unaspirated /p/ in "spin" does not typically create a new foneeme in English.

Linguists analyze foneemes to understand the sound structure of languages. They are crucial for studying phonology, the branch of linguistics concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in spoken languages. Foneemes are typically represented between slashes, such as /k/ or /i/. The study of foneemes is fundamental to understanding how spoken language works and how it is acquired by learners.