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What is a ...?

Consonant

Any speech sound that involves a significant obstruction of the airstream in the vocal tract and that functions at the beginning or end of a syllable, either singly or in a cluster, or a letter of the alphabet representing such a speech sound.

Vowel

A speech sound which is produced by comparatively open configuration of the vocal tract, with vibration of the vocal cords but without audible friction, and which is a unit of the sound system of a language that forms the nucleus of a syllable.

Diphthong

A sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves towards another (as in coin , loud , and side ).