Editing Syllable (section)

{{Short description|Unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Redirect|Syllabic}}
{{IPA notice}}
A '''syllable''' is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of [[Phone (phonetics)|speech sounds]], such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a [[vowel]]) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are most often [[consonant]]s). In [[phonology]] and studies of languages, syllables are often considered the "building blocks" of [[words]].<ref>{{cite book|last=de Jong|first=Kenneth|year=2003|chapter=Temporal constraints and characterising syllable structuring|editor1-last=Local|editor1-first=John|editor1-link=John Local|editor2-last=Ogden|editor2-first=Richard|editor3-last=Temple|editor3-first=Rosalind|title=Phonetic Interpretation: Papers in Laboratory Phonology VI|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=254 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511486425.015|isbn=978-0-521-82402-6}} </ref> They can influence the [[Isochrony|rhythm]] of a language, its [[prosody (linguistics)|prosody]], its [[Metre (poetry)|poetic metre]]; properties such as [[stress (linguistics)|stress]], [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]] and [[reduplication]] operate on syllables and their parts.{{sfn|Easterday|2019|p=3}} Speech can usually be divided up into a whole number of syllables: for example, the word ''ignite'' is made of two syllables: ''ig'' and ''nite''. Most languages of the world use relatively simple syllable structures that often alternate between vowels and consonants.{{sfn|Easterday|2019|p=1}}

Despite being present in virtually all human languages, syllables still have no precise definition that is valid for all known languages.{{sfn|Easterday|2019|p=3}} A common criterion for finding syllable boundaries is native speaker intuition, but individuals sometimes disagree on them.{{sfn|Easterday|2019|p=4}}

[[Syllabic writing]] began several hundred years before the [[Middle Bronze Age alphabets|first letters]]. The earliest recorded syllables are on tablets written around 2800 BC in the [[Sumer]]ian city of [[Ur]]. This shift from [[pictogram]]s to syllables has been called "the most important advance in the [[history of writing]]".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hooker |first1=J. T. |title=Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet |publisher=University of California Press; British Museum |page=8 |isbn=0-520-07431-9 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/readingpastancie0000unse/page/8/mode/2up?q=advance |chapter=Introduction |date=1990 |chapter-url-access=registration}}</ref>

A word that consists of a single syllable (like [[English language|English]] ''dog'') is called a '''monosyllable''' (and is said to be ''monosyllabic''). Similar terms include '''disyllable''' (and ''disyllabic''; also ''bisyllable'' and ''bisyllabic'') for a word of two syllables; '''trisyllable''' (and ''trisyllabic'') for a word of three syllables; and '''polysyllable''' (and ''polysyllabic''), which may refer either to a word of more than three syllables or to any word of more than one syllable.