Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stephen C. Carlson" <scarlson AT mindspring.com>]

There are different ways to explain it, but one way to
define a phoneme is a set of sounds (or "phones") that
native speakers regard as being equivalent when
distinguishing different words.  One way to show that
two sounds are different phoneme is by giving a
minimal pair.  For example, "bat" and "pat" are
different words in English, so the sounds represented
by b and p in this minimal pair are different phonemes.
Allophones are the different phones for the same
phoneme.

What sounds are allophones in one language may be
considered phonemes in another language, and vice
versa.  This is one source of difficulties that people
face when learning to speak a new language.

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson, 
mailto:scarlson AT mindspring.com 
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35