Lynguistykon: Phonemes
From The Somewhere Else Encyclopedia
Phonemes are (in essence) sounds. They are used for audible communication, in language. In many languages, they are tied to letters on a letter-by-letter and/or a lettergroup-by-lettergroup basis, so that each letter or a certain combination of letters corresponds to a specific sound. Note that in a language, the same letter/lettergroup may be communicated via different phonemes by different speakers (i.e. varying by dialect). The same may be true of letters/lettergroups that are held in common by more than one language; even if they may be represented visually in the same way among the languages, they may be communicated differently phonetically.
