The English consonant system

• Consonants


  Speech sounds that occur when airflow is obstructed in some way by the articulatory organs such as the tongue, teeth, and lips
• Consonants have noise as their indispensable and most defining characteristic
• Consonants in English


  • 21 consonants
  • w and y are semi-consonants (glides)
• W


  Always a consonant except in combination with a vowel letter (growth, raw, how /haʊ/)
• Classification of consonants by type of obstruction


  • Occlusive/full stops (p, t, k, b, d, g)
  • Constrictive (partial) (f, v, s, z, h)
  • Affricates [/tʃ/ (as in "church") and /dʒ/ (as in "joy")]
• Classification of consonants by place of articulation

  • Labial (bilabial /p/, /b/, /m/, labio-dental /f/, /v/)
  • Lingual (forelingual [t], [d], medialingual /j/, /ŋ/, backlingual/k/, /g/)
  • Glottal /h/
• American phoneticians also distinguish consonants made in dental, interdental, alveolar, palatal, alveopalatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, glottal position
• Classification of consonants by phonation


  • Voiced /b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /z/, /ʒ/, /dʒ/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /r/, /j/, /w/
  • Voiceless (do not vibrate at all)/p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /θ/, /s/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/, /h/
• Classification of consonants by position of soft palate


  • Oral /p/, /w/, /v/ and /x/
  • Nasal (nasal occlusive sonorants) /m/, /n/, /ŋ/