Editing Gemination (section)

{{Short description|Articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time}}
{{For|the dental phenomenon|Tooth gemination}}
{{For|root doubling in complex words|Reduplication}}
{{distinguish|Germination|Geminal}}

In [[phonetics]] and [[phonology]], '''gemination''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|dʒ|ɛ|m|ᵻ|ˈ|n|eɪ|ʃ|ən|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Gemination.wav}}; from Latin {{Lang|la|geminatio}} 'doubling', itself from ''[[wikt:gemini#Latin|gemini]]'' 'twins'<ref>{{Cite book|last=de Vaan|first=Michiel|title=Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages|publisher=Brill|year=2008|page=256}}</ref>), or '''consonant lengthening''', is an articulation of a [[consonant]] for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The singleton-geminate distinction can be rate dependent: Evidence from Maltese|journal=Laboratory Phonology|last=Mitterer|first=Holger|date=2018-04-27|volume=9|page=6|publisher=[[Association for Laboratory Phonology]]|issue=1|doi=10.5334/labphon.66|language=en|doi-access=free}}</ref> It is distinct from [[stress (linguistics)|stress]]. Gemination is represented in many writing systems by a [[Digraph (orthography)#Double letters|doubled letter]] and is often perceived as a doubling of the consonant.<ref name="ham">William Ham, ''Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Geminate Timing'', p. 1–18</ref> Some phonological theories use 'doubling' as a synonym for gemination, while others describe two distinct phenomena.<ref name="ham"/>

Consonant length is a distinctive feature in certain languages, such as <!-- Do not add any more examples! --> [[Japanese language|Japanese]]. Other languages, such as [[Greek language|Greek]], do not have word-internal phonemic consonant geminates.

Consonant gemination and [[vowel length]] are independent in languages like Arabic, Japanese, Hungarian, Malayalam, and Finnish; however, in languages like Italian, [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], and [[Swedish language|Swedish]], vowel length and consonant length are interdependent. For example, in Norwegian and Swedish, a geminated consonant is always preceded by a short vowel, while an ungeminated consonant is preceded by a long vowel.