English phonology

English phonology is the system of sounds used in spoken English. Like many languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the dialects of English around the world have largely similar (but not identical) phonological systems. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants (stops, affricates, and fricatives).

Phonological analysis of English often concentrates on prestige or standard accents, such as Received Pronunciation for England, General American for the United States, and General Australian for Australia. Nevertheless, many other dialects of spoken English have developed, different from these standard accents, particularly regional dialects. Descriptions of standard reference accents provide only a limited guide to the phonology of other dialects of English.

Phonemes

A phoneme of a language or dialect is an abstraction of a speech sound or of a group of different sounds that are all perceived to have the same function by speakers of that particular language or dialect. For example, the English word three consists of three phonemes: the initial ⟨th⟩ sound, the ⟨r⟩ sound, and a vowel sound. The phonemes in that and many other English words do not always correspond directly to the letters used to spell them (English orthography is not as strongly phonemic as that of many other languages).