Day 117 of 365
April 27
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Language Phonemes and Language Sounds
Phonemes are the smallest units of sound distinguishing meaning in language. English has about 44 phonemes while some languages have over 100. Babies can distinguish all phonemes but lose this ability by age one, specializing in their native language. This explains why learning new language sounds becomes harder with age.
💡 Did you know?
The Pirahã language has only 10-11 phonemes, possibly the fewest of any language!
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