We learn about 6 vowel letters and the numerous sounds we make when using them. In English, we have 5 (well, sometimes 6) vowel letters, but way more vowel sounds. That’s where the IPA can help us! We ...

The sound of a word like “knife” or “truck” seems totally arbitrary–it’s just a random sound we’ve assigned to a thing, right? But for several decades, scientists have found good evidence that the ...

The secret physics at the core of every syllable, starting with the first words we speak. Human language is an incredible thing: a combination of mouth sounds that we combine into words, sentences, ...

Professor William Labov, a University of Pennsylvania linguist and author of the new book Atlas of North American English Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change, says there is a shift of vowel sounds ...

Does [a:] as in 'baa' sound more green or more red? And is [i:] as in 'beet' light or dark in color? Even though we perceive speech and color are perceived with different sensory organs, nearly ...

An acoustical analysis of the grunts, barks, wahoos, copulation calls, and yaks from baboons shows that, like people who use several vowels during speech, these nonhuman primates make five distinct ...