Editing Aspirated consonant (section)

{{Short description|Consonant followed by a strong burst of air}}
{{More citations needed|date=January 2009}}
{{Infobox IPA
| above      = Aspirated
| ipa symbol = ◌ʰ
| decimal    = 688
}}
{{IPA notice}}

In [[phonetics]], '''aspiration''' is the strong burst of [[breathing|breath]] that accompanies either the release or, in the case of [[preaspiration]], the [[Stop consonant#articulation|closure]] of some [[obstruent]]s. In English, aspirated [[consonant]]s are [[allophone]]s in [[complementary distribution#In phonology|complementary distribution]] with their unaspirated counterparts, but in some other languages, notably most [[Languages of South Asia|South Asian languages]]  and [[East Asian languages]], the difference is [[Contrastive distribution#Phonology|contrastive]].