Phonemes are the most basic units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a given language, and every language has its own set. In English, for example, we have the /b/as in bat or /p/ as in pat and the /i/ in pit as well as the /ī/ in lie.
The number of phonemes for a particular language can range widely – from as few as 14 or so in Pirahã, a language spoken by less than a thousand people in the Amazon region of Brazil, to more than a hundred phonemes in African click languages. However, when you’re focusing on a single language, there can be a bit of debate as to exactly how many unique sounds make up that language, as different researchers will use different analytical methods to identify phonemes. For instance, linguists classify English phonemes into a variety of groups, including:
- consonants (x, q, and c aren’t counted because the sounds we use for them are attributed to another letter – like /k/ covers the hard c in cup and /s/ stands in for the soft c in circus),
- long vowels (for those who learned reading through phonics, you know these sounds well – a long ‘a’ as in bate or bait or eight; a long ‘I’ as in pie or dye);
- short vowels (bat, bet, bit, bot, but)
- digraphs (2 consonants that together make a unique sound, like /th/
- ‘r-controlled’ sounds, vowels which we pronounce differently when they’re followed by an r, for instance, the ‘er’ in “here” and “fern” are pronounced differently,
- ‘oo’ sounds (boon vs. Book),
- diphthongs (2 different vowels which are pronounced distinctively – ‘ou’ as in house and ‘oi/oy’ as in loin or loyal)
But they differ on which classifications they use, how many sounds they count in each group, and even on the total number of phonemes they believe English has (is it 35? 42? 44?). Regardless, the ability to process those sounds quickly is a key determinant of how well an individual can acquire and use language. That ability, in turn, is dependent on the developing brain forming connections among the neurons that respond to any unique sound so that it can react to them in the milliseconds of time in which they occur – making that activity one of the key efforts of a child’s first year.