phoneme

See also: Phoneme and phonème

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek φώνημα (phṓnēma, “sound”), from φωνέω (phōnéō, “to sound”), from φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound”). By surface analysis, phone (“speech sound”) +‎ -eme (“unit”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfəʊ.niːm/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfoʊ.nim/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊniːm

Noun

phoneme (plural phonemes)

1. An indivisible unit of sound in a given language. A phoneme is an abstraction of the physical speech sounds (phones) and may encompass several different phones.

   Hypernym: syntagma

   • 1990, Jarmo Lainio, “Sweden Finnish — development or deterioration?”, in Durk Gorter, editor, Fourth International Conference on Minority Languages: Western and Eastern European papers‎^[1], Multilingual Matters, →ISBN, page 31:

     It is crucial for the phoneme structure of Finnish — traditionally /d/ has not been included in the Finnish phonotax, but it fulfils the criteria of a phoneme (Karlsson, 1983: 66-7).

Derived terms

• archiphoneme
• diaphoneme
• phonemic
• phonemical
• phonemically
• phonemicist
• phonemicity
• phonemics
• subphoneme

 

Related terms

• allophone
• allophonic
• allophonical
• allophonically
• allophonics
• diaphone
• diaphonic
• diaphonical
• diaphonically
• diaphonics
• diaphonologic
• diaphonological
• diaphonologically
• diaphonology
• phone
• phonetic
• phonetical
• phonetically
• phonetics
• phonic
• phonical
• phonically
• phonics
• phonologic
• phonological
• phonologically
• phonologist
• phonology

 

Translations

indivisible unit of sound

• Albanian: fonemë (sq) f
• Arabic: فُونِيم m (fōnēm), صَوْت لُغَوِيّ m (ṣawt luḡawiyy)
• Armenian: հնչույթ (hy) (hnčʻuytʻ)
• Asturian: fonema (ast) m
• Belarusian: фане́ма f (fanjéma), фанэ́ма f (fanéma)
• Breton: soniad
• Bulgarian: фоне́ма (bg) f (fonéma)
• Catalan: fonema (ca) m
• Cebuano: ponema
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 音素 (jam¹ sou³), 音位 (jam¹ wai^6-2)

  Hokkien: 音素 (im-sò͘)

  Mandarin: 音素 (zh) (yīnsù), 音位 (zh) (yīnwèi)

• Czech: foném (cs) m
• Danish: fonem (da) n
• Dutch: foneem (nl) n
• Esperanto: fonemo
• Estonian: häälik, foneem
• Finnish: foneemi (fi)
• French: phonème (fr) m
• Galician: fonema (gl) m
• Georgian: ბგერა (bgera)
• German: Phonem (de) n
• Greek: φώνημα (el) n (fónima)
• Gujarati: ધ્વનિઘટક (dhvanighṭak)
• Hindi: ध्वनिग्राम m (dhvanigrām), ध्वनि (hi) f (dhvani), वाच् (hi) f (vāc), व्योम (hi) m (vyom)
• Hungarian: fonéma (hu)
• Icelandic: hljóðan (is)
• Ido: fonemo (io)
• Interlingua: phonema
• Italian: fonema (it) m
• Japanese: 音素 (ja) (おんそ, onso)
• Kannada: ಧ್ವನಿಮಾ (kn) (dhvanimā)
• Khmer: សទ្ទតា (km) (sattĕəʼtaa), សទ្ទភូត (sattĕəʼ phuut)
• Korean: 음소(音素) (ko) (eumso), 표음(表音) (pyoeum), 낱소리 (natsori)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: vac (ku)

• Latin: phōnēma f
• Latvian: fonēma f
• Lithuanian: fonema (lt) f
• Malay: fonem, warna bunyi
• Manx: myn-heean
• Marathi: ध्वनिघटक (dhvanighṭak)
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: авиалбар (mn) (avialbar), фонем (fonem)

  Mongolian: ᠠᠪᠢᠶᠠᠯᠪᠤᠷᠢ (abiyalburi), ᠹᠣᠨᠧᠮ (fonēm)

• Occitan: fonèma (oc) m
• Persian: واج (fa) (vâj)
• Polish: fonem (pl) m
• Portuguese: fonema (pt) m
• Romanian: fonem (ro) n
• Russian: фоне́ма (ru) f (fonéma)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: фо̀не̄м m, фоне́ма f

  Roman: fònēm (sh) m, fonéma f

• Sicilian: funima m
• Sindhi: وايوم f (viome)
• Slovak: fonéma f
• Slovene: fonem (sl) m, glásnik m
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: fonem m

  Upper Sorbian: fonem m

• Spanish: fonema (es) m
• Swahili: fonimu
• Swedish: fonem (sv) n
• Tagalog: multinig
• Tamil: ஒலியன் (ta) (oliyaṉ)
• Thai: หน่วยเสียง (th) (nùai-sǐiang)
• Tibetan: མ་སྒྲ (ma sgra)
• Turkish: sesbirim (tr)
• Ukrainian: фоне́ма f (fonéma)
• Vietnamese: âm vị (音位)
• Walloon: oyon (wa)
• Yiddish: פֿאָנעם m (fonem)

See also

• chereme
• chroneme
• grammeme
• grapheme
• lemma
• lexeme
• listeme
• morpheme
• sememe
• toneme

Further reading

• phoneme on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• phenome