Allophones

Allophones are different variations or versions of the same speech sound (phoneme) that occur naturally in spoken language. They are produced slightly differently depending on the context, like the position in a word or the sounds around them. For example, the "p" sound in "pat" and "spin" are different but both are recognizable as the "p" sound. These variations do not change the meaning of words in a language. Allophones help us produce natural speech, and linguists study them to understand how sounds function within languages.