What is a phoneme?

• A. A letter's name.
• B. The smallest unit of sound in spoken language.
• C. A syllable.
• D. A morpheme.

Answer: (B)

Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in spoken language that can change meaning. They’re the actual sounds you hear, not the letters used to write them. For example, switching the sound /p/ to /b/ in a word changes its meaning, as in pat vs. bat. A word like “cat” is made up of three phonemes: /k/, /æ/, /t/. Remember that letters are symbols for sounds and don’t always line up one-to-one with phonemes—one sound can be written with different letters (like /f/ written as f or ph), and a single letter can represent different sounds in different contexts. A syllable is a unit of rhythm within a word that typically contains a vowel, while a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning, such as un-, break, or -s. Understanding phonemes helps explain how spoken language distinguishes words.