A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, as in ''rain'', ''reign'', and ''rein''. The term ''homophone'' sometimes applies to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as a counterpart. Any unit with this property is said to be ''homophonous'' (). Homophones that are spelled the same are both

homograph A homograph (from the , and , ) is a word that shares the same written form as another word but has a different meaning. However, some dictionaries insist that the words must also be pronounced differently, while the Oxford English Dictionar ...

s and

homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are either; '' homographs''—words that mean different things, but have the same spelling (regardless of pronunciation), or '' homophones''—words that mean different things, but have the same pronunciat ...

s. For example, the word ''read'', in "He is well ''read''" and in "Yesterday, I ''read'' that book". Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs, e.g. ''to'', ''too'', and ''two''.

Wordplay and games

Homophones are often used to create puns and to deceive the reader (as in crossword puzzles) or to suggest multiple meanings. The last usage is common in

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

and creative

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

. An example of this is seen in Dylan Thomas's radio play ''Under Milk Wood'': "The shops in mourning" where ''mourning'' can be heard as ''mourning'' or ''morning''. Another vivid example is

Thomas Hood Thomas Hood (23 May 1799 – 3 May 1845) was an English poet, author and humorist, best known for poems such as "The Bridge of Sighs (poem), The Bridge of Sighs" and "The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for ''The London Magazine'', '' ...

's use of ''birth'' and ''berth'' as well as ''told'' and ''toll'd'' (tolled) in his poem "Faithless Sally Brown": : His death, which happen'd in his ''berth'', : At forty-odd befell: : They went and ''told'' the sexton, and : The sexton ''toll'd'' the bell. In some accents, various sounds have merged in that they are no longer distinctive, and thus words that differ only by those sounds in an accent that maintains the distinction (a minimal pair) are homophonous in the accent with the merger. Some examples from English are: * ''pin'' and ''pen'' in many southern American accents * ''by'' and ''buy'' * ''merry'', ''marry'', and ''Mary'' in most American accents * The pairs ''do'' and ''due'' as well as ''forward'' and ''foreword'' are homophonous in most American accents but not in most English accents * The pairs ''talk'' and ''torque'' as well as ''court'' and ''caught'' are distinguished in rhotic accents, such as

Scottish English Scottish English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard English may be defined ...

, and most dialects of American English, but are homophones in some non-rhotic accents, such as British

Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent of British English regarded as the Standard language, standard one, carrying the highest Prestige (sociolinguistics), social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 2 ...

Wordplay is particularly common in English because the multiplicity of linguistic influences offers considerable complication in spelling and meaning and pronunciation compared with other languages.

Malapropism A malapropism (; also called a malaprop, acyrologia or Dogberryism) is the incorrect use of a word in place of a word with a similar sound, either unintentionally or for comedic effect, resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance. An exam ...

s, which often create a similar comic effect, are usually near-homophones. See also Eggcorn.

Same-sounding phrases

During the 1980s, an attempt was made to promote a distinctive term for same-sounding multiple words or phrases, by referring to them as "oronyms", but since the term oronym was already well established in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

as an onomastic designation for a class of toponymic features (names of mountains, hills, etc.), the alternative use of the same term was not well-accepted in scholarly literature.

In various languages

English

There are online lists of multinyms. In English, concerning groups of homophones (excluding proper nouns), there are approximately 88 triplets, 24 quadruplets, 2 quintuplets, 1 sextet, 1 septet, and 1 questionable octet (possibly a second septet). The questionable octet is: : ''raise'', ''rays'', ''rase'', ''raze'', ''rehs'', ''res'', ''reais'', 'race'' Other than the common words ''raise'', ''rays'', and ''race'' this octet includes * ''raze'' – a verb meaning "to demolish, level to the ground" or "to scrape as if with a razor" * ''rase'' – an archaic verb meaning "to erase" * ''rehs'' – the plural of ''reh'', a mixture of sodium salts found as an efflorescence in India * ''res'' – the plural of ''re'', a name for one step of the musical scale; obsolete legal term for "the matter" or "incident" * ''reais'' – the plural of real, the currency unit of Brazil The inclusion of "race" in the octet above is questionable, since its pronunciation differs from the other words on the list (ending with /s/ instead of /z/). If proper names are included, then a possible nonet would be: * '' Ayr'' – a town in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

* '' Aire'' – a river in

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

* ''Eyre'' – legal term and various geographic locations * ''heir'' – one who inherits * ''air'' – the ubiquitous atmospheric gas that people breathe; a type of musical tune * ''err'' – to make an error * ''ere'' – poetic / archaic "before" * ''e'er'' – poetic "ever" (some speakers) * '' are'' – a metric unit of area, usually found in ''hectare'' Certain word pairs that were historically variant spellings of the same words, but eventually standardized as distinct homophonous words by mere spelling, include: *''flour'' and ''flower'': ''flour'' is the older spelling used for the later meaning ("wheat powder," supposedly the "finest" part, the "bloom" of a meal;''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' compare French '' fleur de farine'', literally "flower of flour"); ''flower'' is the later spelling used for the original meaning ("bloom"). The verb ''flourish'' ("blossom") is spelt more similarly to the noun ''flour'' ("wheat powder"). *''discrete'' and ''discreet'': ''discrete'' maintains the original meaning ("separate"); ''discreet'' is used for the later meaning ("prudent"), although the noun ''discretion'' ("prudence") looks more similar to ''discrete''. The split in spelling occurred after during the late 16th century when ''discreet'' was favored for the popular meaning of "prudent," while ''discrete'' is favored in academic contexts. *''passed'' and ''

past The past is the set of all Spacetime#Definitions, events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human ...

'': ''past'' was one of the many variants of the

past participle In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...

''passed'' of the

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

verb '' passen'' (whence

Modern English Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England England is a Count ...

''pass''). During the 14th century, ''past'' was used specifically as an adjective and prepostion, and during the 15th century as a noun by

ellipsis The ellipsis (, plural ellipses; from , , ), rendered , alternatively described as suspension points/dots, points/periods of ellipsis, or ellipsis points, or colloquially, dot-dot-dot,. According to Toner it is difficult to establish when t ...

with the earlier adjective. Compare the Romance

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

s, French '' passé'', Italian '' passato'', Portuguese '' passado'' and Spanish '' pasado'', all of which function as past participles, adjectives and nouns. *''born'' and ''borne'': these were variant spellings of the same past participle of ''bear'', whose general meaning is "carry", but with one specific derived meaning, "birth". The distinction between ''born'' for "birthed" and ''borne'' for "carried" came to be sometime during the 17th century. Compare ''sworne'', ''torne'' and ''worne'', variants of ''sworn'', ''torn'' and ''worn'', that did not survive into present-day English. ''Its'' was merely the genitive form of ''it'' and derived by adding the apostrophe and ''s'', thus originally spelt ''it's'', making it also a

of ''it's'' (contraction of ''it is/has''). The genitive ''it's'' was retained even toward the early 19th century. The spelling of ''aisle'' (from

Middle French Middle French () is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the mid-14th to the early 17th centuries. It is a period of transition during which: * the French language became clearly distinguished from the other co ...

aisle An aisle is a linear space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, in buildings such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parliaments, courtrooms, ...

'',

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th aile'', wikt:aile#Old French">aile'', ālam'') was altered with the Latin ''wikt:ala#Latin">ālam'') was altered with the silent letter ''s'' due to its historical homophony with ''isle'' (Old French '' isle'', Latin '' īnsulam'') in both French and English. Spelling alteration (often based on

wikt:insula#Latin">īnsulam'') in both French and English. Spelling alteration (often based on etymology) can also obscure homophony, such as the case of ''

colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

'', which prevailed over the historical variant ''coronel'' by the late Modern English period, but which is now still pronounced identically to ''kernel'' as if the ''r'' were still there in the spelling. The ''ye'' in ''dye'' is purposefully retained in its forms, especially its present participle ''dyeing'', in order to distinguish it from the homophonous ''dying'', which is the present participle of ''die''. Homophones can arise from borrowed words which end up being pronounced the same in English, such as ''profit'' (ultimately from Latin ''profectus'') and ''prophet'' (ultimately from Greek προφήτης). Sometimes the English words are even homographs, such as ''quarry'' ('stone mine', from Latin ''quadraria'') and ''quarry'' ('thing that is pursued', from Latin ''corata'') or '' policy Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an or ...

'' (' way of management', ultimately from Greek

πολῑτείᾱ) and '' policy Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an or ...

'' (' insurance contract', from Greek wikt:ἀπόδειξις#Ancient Greek">ἀπόδειξις via Latin '' apodīssa'', Italian '' polizza'' and French ''police'')—see the discussion of English homographs from different Greek origins. Many words were historically heterophonous, but after historical sound changes, including the Great Vowel Shift and various vowel mergers, they became homophonous. For example, ''ail'' and ''ale'', both pronounced in Modern English, were respectively '' eile(n)'' and '' ale'' in Middle English before the Great Vowel Shift. The verbs ''lie'' (past tense and past participle ''lied'') and ''lie'' (past tense ''lay'', past participle ''lain'') used to be '' lēogan'' and '' liċġan'' in Old English; while ''will'' (past tense ''would'') and ''will'' (past tense and past participle ''willed'') used to be ''

willan Willan is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Anne Willan (born 1938), founded the Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne * Frank Willan (1915–1981), English pilot, Royal Air Force officer and Conservative politician * Frank Willan (rower) ...

'' and '' willian'' . ''Ax(e)'' (Middle English '' ax(i)e(n)'',

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

'' āxian/ ācsian''), an obsolescent variant of ''ask'' (Middle English '' ask(i)e(n)'', Old English '' āscian''), is homophonous with '' ax(e)'' (cutting tool) in some Scottish accents, but with ''arcs'' in some English accents such as Multicultural London English.

Epenthesis In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the first syllable ('' prothesis''), the last syllable ('' paragoge''), or between two syllabic sounds in a word. The opposite process in whi ...

, which often occurs at the boundary between a nasal and a

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...

, can cause some words that are phonemically distinct to become phonetically homophonous. For example, ''assistance'' may be pronounced , with an additional ''t'' like in ''assistants''.

Brazilian Portuguese

The Portuguese language has one of the highest numbers of homophones and consequently homographs in the world. Homophonic words include: "Jogo" - I throw, "Jogo" - I play, "Jogo" - Match (Sports), and "Jogo" - Game (This last one is controversial, with dialects like Paulistano considering it non-homophonic, while dialects like Caipira consider it only homophonic, noting that these are two Brazilian dialects.) For example, "Cinto" is a homophone for 9 other words, totalizing 10.(Oxford Languages) Although they are homophones, most of them are also homographs. # Cinto - a strip of varying width made of fabric, leather, or other material, worn around the waist and tied with a bow or fastened with a buckle or other closure. # Cinto - any strap or band that encircles the waist or trunk for safety purposes. # Cinto - synonymous with "CÓS" (waistband). # Cinto - that which surrounds and/or limits a space; fence. # Cinto - a ring that encircles something; belt. # Cinto - "A metal cinto reinforces the columns." # Cinto - synonymous with "ANILHA" (ring). # Cinto - a long, narrow bag that travelers attach to the waist or carry over the shoulder. # Sinto - to touch and feel the texture. # Sinto - to become sensitive to something

German

There are many homophones in present-day standard German. As in other languages, however, there exists regional and/or individual variation in certain groups of words or in single words, so that the number of homophones varies accordingly. Regional variation is especially common in words that exhibit the long vowels ''ä'' and ''e''. According to the well-known dictionary Duden, these vowels should be distinguished as /ɛ:/ and /e:/, but this is not always the case, so that words like ''Ähre'' (ear of corn) and ''Ehre'' (honor) may or may not be homophones. Individual variation is shown by a pair like ''Gäste'' (guests) – ''Geste'' (gesture), the latter of which varies between /ˈɡe:stə/ and /ˈɡɛstə/ and by a pair like ''Stiel'' (handle, stalk) – ''Stil'' (style), the latter of which varies between /ʃtiːl/ and /stiːl/. Besides websites that offer extensive lists of German homophones, there are others which provide numerous sentences with various types of homophones. In the German language homophones occur in more than 200 instances. Of these, a few are triples like * ''Waagen'' (weighing scales) – ''Wagen'' (cart) – ''wagen'' (to dare) * ''Waise'' (orphan) – ''Weise'' (way, manner) – ''weise'' (wise) Most are couples like ''lehren'' (to teach) – ''leeren'' (to empty).

Spanish

Although Spanish has far fewer homophones than English, they are far from being non-existent. Some are homonyms, such as ''basta'', which can either mean 'enough' or 'coarse', and some exist because of homophonous letters. For example, the letters ''b'' and ''v'' are pronounced exactly alike, so the words ''basta'' (coarse) and ''vasta'' (vast) are pronounced identically. Other homonyms are spelled the same, but mean different things in different genders. For example, the masculine noun ''el capital'' means 'capital' as in 'money', but the feminine noun ''la capital'' means 'capital city'.

Japanese

There are many homophones in Japanese, due to the use of

Sino-Japanese vocabulary Sino-Japanese vocabulary, also known as , is a subset of Japanese vocabulary that originated in Chinese language, Chinese or was created from elements borrowed from Chinese. Most Sino-Japanese words were borrowed in the 5th–9th centuries AD, from ...

, where borrowed words and morphemes from Chinese are widely used in Japanese, but many phonemic contrasts, such as the original words' tones, are lost. An extreme example is the pronunciation which, accounting for the "flat"

pitch accent A pitch-accent language is a type of language that, when spoken, has certain syllables in words or morphemes that are prominent, as indicated by a distinct contrasting pitch (music), pitch (tone (linguistics), linguistic tone) rather than by vol ...

, is used for the following words: * (organization / mechanism) * (travelogue) * (rare) * (horseback riding) * (outstanding achievement) * (draft) * (eccentricity) * (contrivance) * (stopping at port) * (returning to school) * (breathing exercise, qigong) * (contribute an article / a written piece) * (armor, e.g. of a tank) * (homeward voyage) * (remarkable effect) * (season / climate) * (stoma) * (setting to work) * (climate) * (returning to port) Upon adoption from

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...

into Early Middle Japanese, certain sounds were modified or simplified to match Japanese phonology, causing homophony. For example, in the above list, , , , , , and may have been pronounced in Middle Chinese, but in Japanese. Furthermore, there were vowel fusions and mergers during Late Middle Japanese which furthered even more homophony. For example, , , and were once pronounced distinctly as , but now all as .

Korean

The Korean language contains a combination of words that strictly belong to Korean and words that are loanwords from Chinese. Due to Chinese being pronounced with varying tones and Korean's removal of those tones, and because the modern Korean writing system, Hangeul, has a more finite number of phonemes than, for example, Latin-derived alphabets such as that of English, there are many homonyms with both the same spelling and pronunciation. For example * '': 'to put on makeup' vs. '': 'to cremate' * '': 'inheritance' vs. '': 'miscarriage' * '': 'fart' vs. '': 'guard' * '밤 ��ː: 'chestnut' vs. '밤': 'night' There are heterographs, but far fewer, contrary to the tendency in English. For example, * '학문(學問)': 'learning' vs. '항문(肛門)': 'anus'. Using

hanja Hanja (; ), alternatively spelled Hancha, are Chinese characters used to write the Korean language. After characters were introduced to Korea to write Literary Chinese, they were adapted to write Korean as early as the Gojoseon period. () ...

(), which are

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

, such words are written differently. As in other languages, Korean homonyms can be used to make puns. The context in which the word is used indicates which meaning is intended by the speaker or writer.

Mandarin Chinese

Due to phonological constraints in Mandarin syllables (as Mandarin only allows for an initial consonant, a vowel, and a nasal or retroflex consonant in respective order), there are only a little over 400 possible unique syllables that can be produced, compared to over 15,831 in the English language. Chinese has an entire genre of poems taking advantage of the large amount of homophones called one-syllable articles, or poems where every single word in the poem is pronounced as the same syllable if tones are disregarded. An example is the '' Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den.'' Like all Chinese languages, Mandarin uses phonemic tones to distinguish homophonic syllables; Mandarin has five tones. A famous example, * () means "mother" * () means "hemp" * () means "horse" * () means "scold" * () is a yes / no question particle Although all these words consist of the same string of consonants and vowels, the only way to distinguish each of these words audibly is by listening to which tone the word has, and as shown above, saying a consonant-vowel string using a different tone can produce an entirely different word altogether. If tones are included, the number of unique syllables in Mandarin increases to at least 1,522. However, even with tones, Mandarin retains a very large amount of homophones. ''Yì'', for example, has at least 125 homophones, and it is the pronunciation used for

such as 义, 意, 易, 亿, 议, 一, and 已. There are even place names in China that have identical pronunciations, aside for the difference in tone. For example, there are two neighboring provinces with nearly identical names,

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

() and

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

(). The only difference in pronunciation between the two names are the tone in the first syllable (Shanxi is pronounced whereas Shaanxi is pronounced ). As most languages exclude the tone diacritics when transcribing Chinese place names into their own languages, the only way to visually distinguish the two names is to write Shaanxi in Gwoyeu Romatzyh

romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

. Otherwise, nearly all other spellings of placenames in mainland China are spelled using Hanyu Pinyin romanization. Many scholars believe that the Chinese language did not always have such a large number of homophones and that the phonological structure of Chinese syllables was once more complex, which allowed for a larger amount of possible syllables so that words sounded more distinct from each other. Scholars also believe that Old Chinese had no phonemic tones, but tones emerged in

to replace sounds that were lost from Old Chinese. Since words in Old Chinese sounded more distinct from each other at this time, it explains why many words in

Classical Chinese Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from . For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary ...

consisted of only one syllable. For example, the

Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern Standard language, standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the Republic of ...

word 狮子(''shīzi'', meaning "lion") was simply 狮 (''shī'') in Classical Chinese, and the Standard Mandarin word 教育 (''jiàoyù,'' "education") was simply 教 (''jiào'') in Classical Chinese. Since many Chinese words became homophonic over the centuries, it became difficult to distinguish words when listening to documents written in Classical Chinese being read aloud. One-syllable articles like those mentioned above are evidence for this. For this reason, many one-syllable words from Classical Chinese became two-syllable words, like the words mentioned in the previous paragraph. Even with the existence of two- or two-syllable words, however, there are even multisyllabic homophones. And there are also a lot of harmonic words. The cultural phenomenon brought about by such linguistic characteristics is that from ancient times to the present day, people have been keen to play games and jokes with homophonic and harmonic words. In modern life, the influence of homophones can be seen everywhere, from CCTV evening sketch programmes, folk art performances and popular folk life. In recent years, receiving the influence of Internet pop culture, young people have invented more new and popular homophones. Homophones even play a major role in daily life throughout China, including Spring Festival traditions, which gifts to give (and not give), political criticism, texting, and many other aspects of people's lives. Another complication that arises within the Chinese language is that in non-rap songs, tones are disregarded in favor of maintaining

melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

in the song. While in most cases, the lack of phonemic tones in music does not cause confusion among native speakers, there are instances where puns may arise. Subtitles in Chinese characters are usually displayed on music videos and in songs sung on movies and TV shows to disambiguate the song's lyrics.

Russian

The presence of homophones in the

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

is associated in some cases with the phenomenon of devoicing of consonants at the end of words and before another consonant sound, in other cases with the reduction of vowels in an unstressed position. Examples include: порог — порок — парок, луг — лук, плод — плот, туш — тушь, падёж — падёшь, бал — балл, косный — костный, предать — придать, компания — кампания, косатка — касатка, привидение — приведение, кот — код, прут — пруд, титрация — тетрация, комплимент — комплемент. Also, the infinitive and the present (or simple future) tense of the third person of the same verb are often pronounced the same way (in writing they differ in the presence or absence of the letter Ь (soft sign) before the postfix -ся): (надо) решиться — (он) решится, (хочу) строиться — (дом) строится, (металл может) гнуться — (деревья) гнутся, (должен) вернуться — (они) вернутся. This often leads to incorrect spelling of reflexive verbs ending with -ться/-тся: in some cases, Ь is mistakenly placed before -ся in the present tense of the third person, while in others, on the contrary, Ь before -ся is missing in the infinitive form.

Vietnamese

It is estimated that there are approximately 4,500 to 4,800 possible syllables in Vietnamese, depending on the dialect. The exact number is difficult to calculate because there are significant differences in pronunciation among the dialects. For example, the graphemes and digraphs "d", "gi", and "r" are all pronounced /z/ in the Hanoi dialect, so the words ''dao'' (knife), ''giao'' (delivery), and ''rao'' (advertise) are all pronounced /zaw˧/. In Saigon dialect, however, the graphemes and digraphs "d", "gi", and "v" are all pronounced /j/, so the words ''dao'' (knife), ''giao'' (delivery), and ''vao'' (enter) are all pronounced /jaw˧/. Pairs of words that are homophones in one dialect may not be homophones in the other. For example, the words ''sắc'' (sharp) and ''xắc'' (dice) are both pronounced /săk˧˥/ in Hanoi dialect, but pronounced /ʂăk˧˥/ and /săk˧˥/ in Saigon dialect respectively.

Psychological research

Pseudo-homophones

Pseudo-homophones are pseudowords that are

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

ally identical to a word. For example, groan/grone and crane/crain are pseudo-homophone pairs, whereas plane/plain is a homophone pair since both letter strings are recognised words. Both types of pairs are used in

lexical decision task The lexical decision task (LDT) is a procedure used in many psychology and psycholinguistics experiments. The basic procedure involves measuring how quickly people classify stimuli as words or nonwords. Although versions of the task had been used ...

s to investigate word recognition.

Use as ambiguous information

Homophones, specifically heterographs, where one spelling is of a threatening nature and one is not (''e.g.'' slay/sleigh, war/wore) have been used in studies of

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner wikt:turmoil, turmoil and includes feelings of dread over Anticipation, anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response ...

as a test of cognitive models that those with high anxiety tend to interpret ambiguous information in a threatening manner.

Footnotes

References

Sources

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External links

Homophone.com
– a list of American homophones with a searchable database
Reed's homophones
– a book of sound-alike words published in 2012
Homophones.ml
– a collection of homophones and their definitions
Homophone Machine
– swaps homophones in any sentence
Useful tips ... English homophones
– homophones list, activities and worksheets {{Authority control Ambiguity Narrative techniques Semantic relations Types of words Homonymy