allophone

The first meaning that appears in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) of the term allophone alludes to one who expresses himself in a different language. It is, in this case, an adjective.

For example: “If out of a group of five men, four speak in English and the fifth is an allophone, this last subject will have difficulties understanding the conversations they have in the room. language of Shakespeare ", "The team is Dominican but the coach is an allophone, that's why he has a translator", "I consider myself an Argentine allophone writer, since I do not write in Spanish".

The concept of allophone, on the other hand, refers to different variants that can exist of a certain phoneme, according to the location of the phoneme in question in the syllable or in the word or according to the characteristics of the contiguous phonemes.

Put more simply, allophones are the different sounds that a phoneme can adopt according to the context, without changing the value of the same. In our language, the letters G, D Y B they may have different allophones by virtue of particular usage.

Take the case of the letter B. You can acquire a sound occlusive, as in the term "combat", or a sound fricative, as in the word "Sunrise". The BTherefore, it has two allophones. As you can see, the value of the letter does not change, although its pronunciation does. Allophones mark these alterations that depend on the context in which the letter appears.

Before continuing, it is necessary to briefly define the concepts related to the types of sounds that consonants can produce. A plosive consonantfirst, it generates a sound that obstructs the flow of the air for a fraction of time until it finally releases the passage. If we think again about the lyrics B In the word "combat", we will notice that between the end of the M and the beginning of the TO there is a short period of time in which the air stops leaving the mouth.

On the other hand, the concept of allophone is also related to the fricative consonant, which is generated when the articulatory organs narrow or contract, causing an alteration in the passage of the air which manifests as friction, which can acquire varying degrees of turbulence.

In the case of the term "dawn", the organs that we narrow to pronounce it are the lips, while to say "seal" we take advantage of the tooth upper lips and lower lip to reduce the passage of air and give rise to that sound so characteristic of the letter F.

Another case of fricative sound occurs when pronouncing the letter X, and that here the soft palate and the back of the tongue come into play; for example, in the word "extra." Two synonyms for fricative They are strident Y spirant, although at present they are not so frequent.

Our idiom it has more examples of allophones, although not as many as English or Catalan, for example. However, the fundamental problem when it comes to identifying them is not the scarcity but the little force that we print in the consonants when speaking Spanish, although this varies according to the accent.

The letter D presents a particular case, in which this difficulty is appreciated: in the term "given", the pronunciation of the D it is not the same in both syllables, although the difference is almost imperceptible. In the first syllable the consonant is stop, while in the second it is approximate fricative, since it lets the air out with a friction that can be heard slightly.