Phoneme

A phoneme (/ˈfnm/) is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sounda smallest possible phonetic unitthat helps distinguish one word from another. All languages contain phonemes (or the spatial-gestural equivalent in sign languages), and all spoken languages include both consonant and vowel phonemes; phonemes are primarily studied under the branch of linguistics known as phonology.