Phoneme inventory

A phoneme inventory is the complete set of distinct sounds, called phonemes, used in a language to distinguish one word from another. Think of phonemes as the basic building blocks of speech sounds that convey meaning. For example, the words "bat" and "pat" differ by their initial phonemes /b/ and /p/. Different languages have different phoneme inventories, which shape their unique sound patterns. Understanding a language’s phoneme inventory helps linguists analyze pronunciation, dialects, and language learning, providing insight into how sounds function systematically within that language.