An intro to Phonemics

What in the world is Phonemics? That's what I was asking when I looked at our course schedule. I have since learned that Phonemics is the science of alphabet formation. It is the process of reducing a language to writing. This process involves four different stages.

1. Phonetics - this is the stage where each different sound in the language gets a different symbol. This is unlike our alphabet where any given letter can sound any number of ways. Take for instance how many ways the sound "u" can be spelled: boot, blue, flute, to, suit, new, through, you, shoe, two, flu etc. This inconsistency would be a nightmare when transcribing sounds in another language, so, each different sound gets a different symbol. This way we can reproduce the sounds accurately and consistently.

2. Interpretation - This addresses the problem that certain phonetic sounds could be written accurately in more than one way. For example using the symbol "dz" instead of "j" as in jug.

3. Analysis - This is the process of determining which phonetic symbols are significant to the native speaker and which ones are simply variations that aren't significant at all. For example, as English speakers, we don't notice that we sometimes aspirate our "p's" and sometimes we don't. Aspiration is that puff of air that escapes when we say a letter.

So that this makes more sense, get a piece of paper about 1 inch wide and 4 inches long. Hold it close to your lips and say the word "paper." Notice how the paper "jumps" more when you say the first "p" than it does when you pronounce the second "p". That's because the first "p" is aspirated and the second one is not. We don't see this variation in sound as being two totally different letters. They are non-significant to us. But in some languages, the aspiration is as clear to them as the letters "t" and "d" are clearly differnt to us. Analysis helps us determine what sounds are significant to them and which ones are just variations of the same sound.

4. Orthograpy - This is deciding which letters will be used in everyday writing to represent the significant sounds of the language - i.e. their alphabet!

So...that's a quick intro to Phonemics. Our class did not go too deep with this because the majority of this task is given to linguists - and a linguist I am not!