2016م - 1444هـ
The Sounds of Language



Knowing a language includes knowing the sounds of that

language

• Phonetics is the study of speech sounds

• We are able to segment a continuous stream of speech

into distinct parts and recognize the parts in other words

• Everyone who knows a language knows how to segment

sentences into words and words into sounds

Our linguistic knowledge allows us to ignore

nonlinguistic differences in speech (such as

individual pitch levels, rates of speed, coughs)

• We are capable of making sounds that are not

speech sounds in English but are in other

languages

– The click tsk that signals disapproval in English is a

speech sound in languages such as Xhosa and Zulu

where it is combined with other sounds just like t or k

is in English