Editing Phonetics (section)

== <span class="anchor" id="Consonants"></span>Describing sounds ==
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Human languages use many different sounds and to compare them linguists must be able to describe sounds in a way that is language independent. Speech sounds can be described in a number of ways. Most commonly speech sounds are referred to by the mouth movements needed to produce them. [[Consonant]]s and [[vowel]]s are two gross categories that phoneticians define by the movements in a speech sound. More fine-grained descriptors are parameters such as place of articulation. [[Place of articulation]], [[manner of articulation]], and [[voicing (phonetics)|voicing]]<!--Maybe these should go to the relevant sections instead of separate pages--> are used to describe consonants and are the main divisions of the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] consonant chart. Vowels are described by their height, backness, and rounding. Sign language are described using a similar but distinct set of parameters to describe signs: location, movement, hand shape, palm orientation, and non-manual features. In addition to articulatory descriptions, sounds used in oral languages can be described using their acoustics. Because the acoustics are a consequence of the articulation, both methods of description are sufficient to distinguish sounds with the choice between systems dependent on the phonetic feature being investigated.

Consonants are speech sounds that are articulated with a complete or partial closure of the [[vocal tract]]. They are generally produced by the modification of an [[Airstream mechanism|airstream]] exhaled from the lungs. The respiratory organs used to create and modify airflow are divided into three regions: the vocal tract (supralaryngeal), the [[larynx]], and the subglottal system. The airstream can be either [[egressive]] (out of the vocal tract) or [[ingressive]] (into the vocal tract). In pulmonic sounds, the airstream is produced by the lungs in the subglottal system and passes through the larynx and vocal tract. [[Glottalic]] sounds use an airstream created by movements of the larynx without airflow from the lungs. [[Click consonant|Click]] consonants are articulated through the [[rarefaction]] of air using the tongue, followed by releasing the forward closure of the tongue.

Vowels are [[syllabic]] speech sounds that are pronounced without any obstruction in the vocal tract.{{Sfn|Ladefoged|Maddieson|1996|p=281}} Unlike consonants, which usually have definite places of articulation, vowels are defined in relation to a set of reference vowels called [[cardinal vowels]]. Three properties are needed to define vowels: tongue height, tongue backness, and lip roundedness. Vowels that are articulated with a stable quality are called [[monophthong]]s; a combination of two separate vowels in the same syllable is a [[diphthong]].{{Sfn|Gussenhoven|Jacobs|p=26-27|2017}} In the [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]], the vowels are represented on a trapezoid shape representing the human mouth: the vertical axis representing the mouth from floor to roof and the horizontal axis represents the front-back dimension.{{Sfn|Lodge|2009|p=38}}

===Transcription===
{{Main|Phonetic transcription}}
[[Phonetic transcription]] is a system for transcribing [[Phone (phonetics)|phones]] that occur in a language, whether [[oral language|oral]] or [[sign language|sign]]. The most widely known system of phonetic transcription, the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] (IPA), provides a standardized set of symbols for oral phones.{{sfn|O'Grady|2005|p=17}}{{sfn|International Phonetic Association|1999}} The standardized nature of the IPA enables its users to transcribe accurately and consistently the phones of different languages, [[dialect]]s, and [[idiolect]]s.{{sfn|O'Grady|2005|p=17}}{{sfn|Ladefoged|2005}}{{sfn|Ladefoged|Maddieson|1996}} The IPA is a useful tool not only for the study of phonetics but also for language teaching, professional acting, and [[speech pathology]].{{sfn|Ladefoged|2005}}

While no sign language has a standardized writing system, linguists have developed their own notation systems that describe the handshape, location and movement. The [[Hamburg Notation System]] (HamNoSys) is similar to the IPA in that it allows for varying levels of detail. Some notation systems such as KOMVA and the [[Stokoe notation|Stokoe system]] were designed for use in dictionaries; they also make use of alphabetic letters in the local language for handshapes whereas HamNoSys represents the handshape directly. [[SignWriting]] aims to be an easy-to-learn writing system for sign languages, although it has not been officially adopted by any deaf community yet.{{Sfn|Baker|van den Bogaerde|Pfau|Schermer|p=242-244|2016}}