Phonetics

Phonetics is the study of the sounds of language.  These sounds are called phonemes. There are literally
hundreds of them used in different languages.  Even a single language like English requires us to
distinguish about 40!  The key word here is distinguish.  We actually make much finer discriminations
among sounds, but English only requires 40.  The other discriminations are what lets us detect the
differences in accents and dialects, identify individuals, and differentiate tiny nuances of speech that
indicate things beyond the obvious meanings of the words.

The Vocal Tract

In order to study the sounds of language, we first need to study the vocal tract.  Speech starts with the
lungs, which push air out and pull it in.  The original purpose was, of course, to get oxygen and eliminate
carbon dioxide.  But it is also essential for speech.  There are phonemes that are little more than
breathing:  the h for example.

Next, we have the larynx, or voice box.  It sits at the juncture of the trachea or windpipe coming up from
the lungs and the esophagous coming up from the stomach.  In the larynx, we have an opening called
the glottis, an epiglottis which covers the glottis when we are swallowing, and the vocal cords.  The
vocal cords consist of two flaps of mucous membrane stretched across the glottis, as in this photograph:

The vocal cords can be tightened and loosened and can vibrate when air is forced past them, creating
sound.  Some phonemes use that sound, and are called voiced.  Examples include the vowels (a, e, i, o,
and u, for example) and some of the consonants (m, l, and r, for example).  Other phonemes do not
involve the vocal cords, such as the consonants h, t, or s, and so are called unvoiced.

The area above the glottis is called the pharynx, or upper throat.  It can be tightened to make phryngeal
consonants.  English doesn’t have any of these, but they sound like when you try to get a piece of food
back up out of your throat.
At the top of the throat is the opening to the nasal passages (called the nasopharynx, in case you are
interested).  When we allow air to pass into the nose while speaking, the sounds we make are called
nasal.  Examples include m, n, and the ng sound of sing.

Much of the action during speech occurs in the mouth, of course, especially involving the interaction of
the tongue with the roof of the mouth.  The roof of the mouth has several specific areas:  At the very
back, just before the nasal passage, is that little bag called the uvula.  Its major function seems to be
moisturizing the air and making certain sounds called, obviously, uvular.  The best known is the kind of r
pronounced in the back of the mouth by some French and German speakers.  Uvular, pharyngeal, and
glottal sounds are often refered to as gutterals.

Next, we have the soft palate, called the velum.  If you turn your tongue back as far as it will go and
press up, you can feel how soft it is.  When you say k or g, you are using the velum, so they are called
velar consonants.

Further forward is the hard palate.  Quite a few consonants are made using the hard palate, such as s,
sh, n, and l, and are called palatals.  Just behind the teeth is the dental ridge or alveolus.  Here is where
many of us make our t’s and d’s -- alveolar consonants.

At the very outer edge of the mouth we have the teeth and the lips.  Dental consonants are made by
touching the tongue to the teeth.  In English, we make the two th sounds like this.  Note that one of
these is voiced (the th in the) and one is unvoiced (the th in thin).

At the lips we can make several sounds as well.  The simplest, perhaps, are the bilabial sounds, made by
holding the lips together and then releasing the sound, such as p and b, or by keeping them together
and releasing the air through the nose, making the bilabial nasal m.  We can also use the upper teeth
with the lower lip, for labiodental sounds.  This is how we make an f, for example.

Incidentally, we also have two names for the parts of the tongue used with these various parts of the
mouth:  The front edge is called the corona, and the back is called the dorsum.  Sounds like t, th, and s
are made with the corona, while k, g, and ng are made with the dorsum.
Consonants
Consonants are sounds which involve full or partial blocking of airflow.  In English, the consonants are p,
b, t, d, ch, j, k, g, f, v, th, dh, s, z, sh, zh, m, n, ng, l, r, w, and y.  They are classified in a number of
different ways, depending on the vocal tract details we just discussed.

1.  Stops, also known as plosives.  The air is blocked for a moment, then released.  In English, they are p,
b, t, d, k, and g.

a.  Bilabial plosives: p (unvoiced) and b (voiced)

b.  Alveolar plosives:  t (unvoiced) and d (voiced)
c.  Velar plosives:  k (unvoiced) and g (voiced)

In other languages, we find labiodental, palatal, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal plosives as well, and
retroflex plosives, which involve reaching back to the palate with the corona of the tongue.

In many languages, plosives may be followed by aspiration, that is, by a breathy sound like an h.  In
Chinese, for example, there is a distinction between a p pronounced crisply and an aspirated p.  We use
both in English (pit vs poo), but it isn’t a distinction that separates one meaning from another.

2.  Fricatives involve a slightly resisted flow of air.  In English, these include f, v, th, dh, s, z, sh, zh, and h.

a.  Labiodental fricatives:  f (unvoiced) and v (voiced)

b.  Dental fricatives:  th (as in thin -- unvoiced) and dh (as in the -- voiced)
c.  Alveolar fricatives:  s (unvoiced) and z (voiced)
d.  Palatal fricatives:  sh (unvoiced) and zh (like the s in vision -- voiced)
e.  Glottal fricative:  h (unvoiced)

3.  Affricates are sounds that involve a plosive followed immediately by a fricative at the same location. 
In English, we have ch (unvoiced) and j (voiced).  Many consider these as blends:  t-sh and d-zh.

4.  Nasals are sounds made with air passing through the nose.  In English, these are m, n, and ng.

a.  Bilabial nasal:  m

b.  Alveolar nasal:  n
c.  Velar nasal:  ng

5.  Liquids are sounds with very little air resistance.  In English, we have l and r, which are both alveolar,
but differ in the shape of the tongue.  For l, we touch the tip to the ridge of the teeth and let the air go
around both sides.  For the r, we almost block the air on both sides and let it through at the top.  Note
that there are many variations of l and r in other languages and even within English itself!
6.  Semivowels are sounds that are, as the name implies, very nearly vowels.  In English, we have w and
y, which you can see are a lot like vowels such as oo and ee, but with the lips almost closed for w (a
bilabial) and the tongue almost touching the palate for y (a palatal).  They are also called glides, since
they normally “glide” into or out of vowel positions (as in woo, yeah, ow, and oy).

Vowels

There are about 14 vowels in English.  They are the ones found in these words:  beet, bit, bait, bet, bat,
car, pot (in British English), bought, boat, book, boot, bird, but, and the a in ago.  There are also three
diphthongs or double vowels:  bite, cow, and boy.  Diphthongs involve off-glides.: You can hear the y in
bite and boy, and the w in cow.  Actually, the sounds in bait and boat are also diphthongs (with y and w
off-glides, respectively), but the first parts of the diphthongs are different from the nearby sounds in bet
and bought.

Vowels are classified in three dimensions:

1.  The height of the tongue in the mouth -- low, mid, or high

high are beet, bit, boot, and book

mid are bait, bet, but, boat, bought, bird and a in ago
low are bat, car, and british pot

2.  How far forward or backward in the mouth the tongue rises -- front, center, or back

front are beet, bit, bait, bet, and bat

center are but, bird, and a in ago
back are boot, book, boat, bought, and british pot

3.  How rounded or unrounded the lips are

the front vowels are unrounded

the center and back vowels are rounded

There is one more dimension that doesn’t have much to do with English, but is essential in many
languages, and that is vowel length.  Vowels can be short or long, and it is just a matter of how long you
continue the sound.  The closest we get in English is that the vowel in beet is longer (as well as higher)
than the vowel in bit.  The same goes for boot and book, and for caught and the British pot.

IPA

Over the years, linguists have developed a complex chart of phonemes for transcribing the sounds of all
languages around the world.  It is called the International Phonetic Alphabet, and much of it is in the
charts below.  If you get question marks or little squares, that means your computer isn't equipt with
unicode, in which case you will have to look elsewhere for charts like this.

 
Consonants

bilabial labio- dental alveolar retroflex palato- palatal velar uvular glottal
dental alveolar

Plosives uv.
p t ʈ c k q ʔ
v.
b d ɖ ɟ g ɢ
fricatives uv.
Φ f θ s ʂ ʃ ç x χ h
v.
β v ð z ʐ ʒ ʝ γ ʁ ɦ
Nasals
m ɱ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ
semivowels uv. ʍ
v.
w ʋ ɹ ɻ j
rolled/
в r ʀ
trilled
tapped/ ɾ ɽ
flapped

Laterals
l ɭ λ L
lateral uv.
-fricatives
ł
v. ɮ

Vowels

front central back

high
i   y ɨ    ʉ ɯ u

ɪ ʏ      ʊ
middle
e   ø ɜ  ə  ɵ ɤ o

ɛ   œ ɐ        ʌ      ɔ
low
æ a α ɒ

Vowel length is marked with a colon after the vowel, e.g. i:

Nasal vowels are shown by placing a tilde over the vowel, e.g. ã
Stress and Tones

In many languages around the world, including English, words are differentiated by means of stress.