Quotes About Speech sounds

One of his many interests was a concern to establish just how many vowels and consonants the human vocal tract is capable of producing in the languages of the world. The answer is more than people think. He estimated that there were over eight hundred different consonants and some two hundred different vowels.

The number of vowel phonemes varies according to the different Masoretic traditions.

Speech sounds can be analyzed into fundamental units called phonemes; these move around like protozoa in a drop of water, and, like protozoa, join together and split up.

The task is to investigate speech sounds in relation to the meanings with which they are invested, i.e., sounds viewed as signifiers, and above all to throw light on the structure of the relation between sounds and meaning.

Aud rhymes with shroud.