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In phonology
Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
, minimal pairs are pairs of word
Word

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communication with Meaning . A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value....
s or phrases in a particular language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
, toneme or chroneme
Chroneme

In linguistics, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. The noun chroneme is derived from Greek ?????? , and the suffixed -eme, which is analogous to the -eme in phoneme....
 and have a distinct meaning. They are used to demonstrate that two phones constitute two separate phonemes in the language.

As an example for English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s, the pair "let" + "lit" can be used to demonstrate that the phones (in let) and (in lit) do in fact represent distinct phonemes and .






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In phonology
Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
, minimal pairs are pairs of word
Word

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communication with Meaning . A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value....
s or phrases in a particular language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme
Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
, toneme or chroneme
Chroneme

In linguistics, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. The noun chroneme is derived from Greek ?????? , and the suffixed -eme, which is analogous to the -eme in phoneme....
 and have a distinct meaning. They are used to demonstrate that two phones constitute two separate phonemes in the language.

As an example for English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s, the pair "let" + "lit" can be used to demonstrate that the phones (in let) and (in lit) do in fact represent distinct phonemes and . An example for English consonants is the minimal pair of "pat" + "bat". In phonetics, this pair, like any other, differs in number of ways. In this case, the contrast appears largely to be conveyed with a difference in the voice onset time
Voice onset time

In phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is defined as the length of time that passes between when a stop-consonant is released and when voiced consonant, the vibration of the vocal folds, begins in unvoiced aspirated stops....
 of the initial consonant as the configuration of the mouth is same for and ; however, there is also a possible difference in duration, which visual analysis using high quality video supports.

Phonemic differentiation
Phonemic differentiation

Phonemic differentiation is the phenomenon of a language maximizing the acoustic distance between its phonemes, presumably to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding....
 may vary between different dialect
Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
s of a language, so that a particular minimal pair in one accent
Accent (linguistics)

In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation of a language. Accents can be confused with dialects which are varieties of language differing in vocabulary, syntax, and morphology , as well as pronunciation....
 is a pair of homophone
Homophone

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as Carat , caret, and carrot, or to, two and too....
s in another. This does not necessarily mean that one of the phonemes is absent in the homonym accent; merely that it is not present in the same range of contexts.

Examples


Differentiations in English

Following pairs prove existence of various distinct phonemes in English.
word 1 word 2 IPA 1 IPA 2 note
pin bin initial consonant
rot lot
zeal seal
bin bean vowel
pen pan
hat had final consonant


Differentiating consonants with same location and manner of articulation

In the articulation of bilabial plosive
Bilabial plosive

The bilabial plosive is a consonant sound. Two kinds are distinguished:* Voiced bilabial plosive * Voiceless bilabial plosive ...
s, 4 phones are defined by the characteristics voiced/unvoiced and aspirated/unaspirated: , , and . In different languages only some of these may occur and the number of phonemes formed may be different again.

Pattern Language(s) Explanation
English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 		allophone
Allophone

In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word....
s of the phoneme and no minimal pair can be found to distinguish them, but the word "bin" shows that the phone forms a phoneme separate from .
Mandarin
Mandarin (linguistics)

Mandarin , is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. When taken as a separate language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin language has more native speakers than any other language....
 
French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
/Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
 		 In romance languages and other European languages only phones (and phonemes) and occur.
Hindi/Urdu All four phones are separate phonemes.
Thai
Thai language

Thai , is the national language and official language language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group....
 
  • ?? "sheet"
  • ?? "to go"
  • ??? "danger"


    • Differentiating vowels

    The following table shows a minimal set in French distinguishing vowels, some or all of which may sound alike to an Anglophone, because the and sounds do not exist in English:
    word IPA meaning
    cire wax
    sûre sure
    sœur sister
    sieur sir
    sueur sweat


    Differentiating consonants

    A minimal triplet of consonants in French is:
    word IPA meaning
    bête noire black beast, pet peeve
    baie noire black berry (not blackberry
    BlackBerry

    The BlackBerry is a wireless handheld device introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager. In 2002, the more commonly known smartphone BlackBerry was released, which supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, internet faxing, web browsing and other wireless information services as well as a multi-touch interface....
    , which is mûre sauvage)
    baignoire bathtub


    Because is not a single phoneme in French, this shows a minimal pair between the presence and absence of next to , which shares its point of articulation. and differ only in point of articulation.

    There are three verbs in Hebrew
    Hebrew language

    Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
     which demonstrate the distinction, in some dialects, between a velar stop and an uvular stop on one hand, and a glottal stop with and without tightening of the throat on the other:
    word IPA meaning
    ??? read, call
    ??? tear apart
    ??? kneel


    In the following two Hebrew verbs, the only distinction is a glottal stop in the middle of the first word:
    word IPA meaning
    ????? see
    ????? shoot


    In Korean
    Korean language

    Korean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China....
    , phones in "Korea' and in "Seoul" are allophones of one phoneme and are perceived by native speakers of Korean as a single phoneme. The difference is that is an allophone of this phoneme before vowels.

    In Spanish
    Spanish language

    Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
    , and are both allophones of . appears only before voiced consonants as in mismo .

    Differentiating chronemes

    Hungarian
    Hungarian language

    Hungarian is a Uralic languages unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries....
    , Italian
    Italian language

    Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
     and Polish
    Polish language

    Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....
     have distinctive length of consonant
    Gemination

    In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic language, Estonian language, Finnish language, Russian language, Hebrew language, Hungarian language, Italian language, Japanese language, L...
    s, as did Latin
    Latin

    Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
    . A differentiator for length may be called a chroneme
    Chroneme

    In linguistics, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. The noun chroneme is derived from Greek ?????? , and the suffixed -eme, which is analogous to the -eme in phoneme....
    . In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), lengthening can be indicated by doubling the symbol, or by the special sign . Doubling is commonly used for consonants, while the special symbol is used for vowels. E.g. in Italian:

    word IPA meaning
    pala spade
    palla ball


    Hungarian
    Hungarian language

    Hungarian is a Uralic languages unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries....
    , German
    German language

    German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
     and Thai
    Thai language

    Thai , is the national language and official language language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group....
     have distinctive vowel length
    Vowel length

    In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one such as in Australian English....
    , as did Latin
    Latin

    Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
    . E.g. in Thai (and compare this example also to the one on tone):

    word IPA RTGS quality meaning
    ??? khao short, rising tone he/she
    ??? khao long, rising tone white
    ???? khâo short, falling tone enter
    ???? khâo long, falling tone rice
    ???? khào short, low tone knee
    ???? khào long, low tone news


    Differentiating tonemes

    Languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Thai
    Thai language

    Thai , is the national language and official language language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group....
     and many African languages
    African languages

    There are an estimated 2,000 languages spoken in Africa. They fall into four major language family:*Afro-Asiatic languages stretches from North Africa to the Horn of Africa and Southwest Asia....
    . (See: pitch accent
    Pitch accent

    Pitch accent is a linguistics term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in Pitch to give prominence to a syllable or Mora_ within a word....
     and tonal language
    Tonal language

    A tonal language is a language that uses tone to distinguish words. Tone is a Phonology common to many languages around the world . Various Chinese language languages such as Mandarin, Min Nan/Taiwanese Minnan and Cantonese are perhaps the most well-known of such languages....
    .) For example in Thai:

    word IPA RTGS quality meaning
    ??? kha:o rising tone white
    ???? khâ:o falling tone rice
    ???? khà:o low tone news


    Differentiating stress

    Spanish
    Spanish language

    Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
    , Portuguese
    Portuguese language

    Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
    , Romanian
    Romanian language

    Romanian or Daco-Romanian ; self-designation: limba rom?na, ) is a Romance languages spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova....
     and Italian
    Italian language

    Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
     have many minimal pairs differing only in stress. Dutch
    Dutch language

    Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
     has several, e.g. (stress indicated by acute accent):

    language word IPA meaning
    Dutch voorkómen prevent
    Dutch vóórkomen occur
    Romanian copíi children
    Romanian cópii copies
    Portuguese andarão will walk
    Portuguese andaram walked
    Italian becchìno undertaker
    Italian bécchino let them peck
    Spanish límite (the) limit
    Spanish limite he/she limits, you (formal) limit
    Spanish limité I limited


    Minimal pairs may differ superficially in more than one place if one feature is dependent on the other. For example, English record (noun) and record (verb) (and similar pairs) appear superficially not to be minimal pairs for stress because they differ in vowel quality as well. However, since the differences in vowel quality are predictable consequences of the differences in stress, such pairs are considered minimal pairs. The case is similar in Russian
    Russian language

    Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
    , eg. ???? ('torture, pain') and ???? ('flour').

    External links

    • Australian English (non-rhotic) Minimal Pair Words and Pictures from Caroline Bowen. Most of these will "work" in other dialects of English.
    • : Australian English (non-rhotic) Minimal Pair Words and Pictures from Caroline Bowen. Most of these will "work" in other dialects of English.
    • ... and other word lists (without pictures) in English from Caroline Bowen.
    • Speech-Language Pathologists' intervention "tricks" and techniques involving minimal pairs - Words and Pictures from Caroline Bowen
    • Many words and pictures: singleton consonant lists, revisions and repairs, minimal pairs, etc from