The purpose of writing is to represent spoken words on paper. So in order for us to develop an efficient system for writing English we need to make a study of the sounds which are to be represented.
English is spoken somewhat differently in different parts of the world, so the "sounds of English" will vary depending whether a North American is speaking, or an Englishman, or a person from India. The following analysis of "the sounds of English" attempts to be universal in its approach.
There are about 43 different sounds in English. The science of phonetics calls each of these sounds a "phoneme", because the actual sound can vary, depending on the sound which comes before or after it. For example, the phoneme 'r' sounds different in the two words 'true' and 'her'.
Some authors say that there are 44, 45 or even 46 different phonemes in English. For example, some people say that the 'w' sound in 'wait' and the 'wh' sound in 'when' are different. But because the vast majority of people speaking English these days do not make these kinds of distinctions when they speak, our analysis here will strive for simplicity by restricting the number of phonemes to 43.
Some of the phonemes (sounds) of English are diphthongs - that is, they are made up of two (or sometimes three) different sounds joined together. For example, the sound 'oi' in 'boil' is a diphthong.
Some of the sounds of English are borrowed from other languages. For example, the hard 'ch' sound in the German name 'Bach' is sometimes imitated by speakers of English. But it would be impossible for a consistent English spelling system to attempt to represent all the sounds borrowed from other languages. So we will suggest that such words should assume English sounds when they are spoken in everyday English. So 'Bach' should be pronounced 'Barc', unless the speaker was particularly stressing the German origin of the word.
We need to distinguish between sounds that are voiced and those that are unvoiced. A voiced sound is one which involves the vocal chords in the throat vibrating. An unvoiced sound is one where the vocal chords do not vibrate - rather, the vocal chords are opened so that air passes straight through them.
For example, the sound 's' is unvoiced, whereas the sound 'z' is voiced. If you make an 's' sound and change it into a 'z' sound and back again, you can feel the vocal chords being turned on and off. Also, you can feel the vocal chords vibrating if you touch your throat.
Many consonants have an unvoiced and a voiced version - for example, the pair
of sounds 's' and 'z'. All vowels are voiced.
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