fonemid

Fonemid, or phonemes, are the smallest units of sound in a language that can distinguish meaning. They are abstract categories used in phonology to describe the sound system of a language. In any language, certain sounds belong to the same phoneme because replacing one with another does not change the word’s meaning within that language. In contrast, distinct phonemes produce contrastive meanings; for example, in English the words pit and bit differ in the initial consonant sound, which are interpreted as distinct phonemes /p/ and /b/.

Phonemes are realized as concrete sounds called allophones, which vary by context without changing the word’s meaning. For instance, the English /t/ is aspirated [tʰ] at the beginning of a stressed syllable but may be unreleased [t̚] after another consonant; these are allophones of the same phoneme. The same principle applies to vowels and other consonants, with context shaping their actual realization while keeping the underlying phoneme the same.

A language’s set of phonemes, its phonemic inventory, includes both consonants and vowels and can differ across languages and dialects. Phonotactics describes the permissible sequences and structures of phonemes, such as allowable syllable shapes and consonant clusters. Writing systems do not always align neatly with phonemes; orthography often reflects historical or morphological factors beyond contemporary phonology, and phonemic transcription uses slashes, while phonetic transcription uses brackets.

Phonemes influence language acquisition, variation, and change. Dialects may merge or split phoneme inventories, and historical sound changes can alter which contrasts are meaningful in a language.