Phonem
A phoneme () is a set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—the 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).
Phonemes are often represented, when written, as a glyph (a character) enclosed within two forward-sloping slashes /. For example, /k/ represents the phoneme or sound used at the beginning of the English-language word cat (as opposed to, say, the /b/ of bat).
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