Words & WritingGreek → English
Phoneme
/ˈfoʊniːm/noun
The smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word in a language.
The Greek roots
φώνημα
phṓnēma
a sound uttered
Literally: “an utterance”
Follow a root:φώνημα1 word
The story of the word
The French linguist Dufriche-Desgenettes proposed phonème in 1873 as a rendering of German Sprachlaut, and English had it within twenty years. Greek φώνημα meant nothing more than a sound made with the voice. A phoneme is not really a sound but a contrast: English treats the p of pin and the p of spin as one phoneme, while Hindi keeps them apart and builds different words on the difference.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
phoneticssymphonytelephoneeuphony
In a sentence
Swapping one phoneme turns 'bat' into 'pat'.