Consonant
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Consonant
A consonant (/ˈkɒnsənənt/) is a basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partially obstructed. The word comes from Latin consonantem (nominative consonans), which means "sounding together" or "harmonizing," and is a term used in phonetics, the study of speech sounds.
Etymology
The term consonant is derived from the Latin word consonantem, which means "sounding together" or "harmonizing". The word is a compound of con- ("with") and sonare ("to sound"), thus denoting that consonants are sounds that "sound with" the vowels of a language.
Types of Consonants
There are several types of consonants, including plosives, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids, and semi-vowels.
Related Terms
- Phonetics: The study of the physical sounds of human speech.
- Vowel: A speech sound which is produced by comparatively open configuration of the vocal tract.
- Syllable: A unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds.
- Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language.
See Also
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