ORAL CONSONANT Meaning and
Definition
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An oral consonant can be defined as a type of consonant sound that is produced by the movement of air through the oral cavity, or mouth. The term "oral" refers to the fact that these consonant sounds are articulated using primarily the mouth, rather than the nasal cavity. In other words, when producing oral consonants, the air flow is not nasalized, and instead, it passes only through the oral cavity.
The oral cavity plays a crucial role in shaping and modifying the airflow to produce different oral consonant sounds. The movements and positions of the lips, teeth, tongue, and other parts of the mouth determine the specific oral consonant being articulated. For example, the "p" sound is produced by briefly closing the lips and releasing a burst of air, while the "t" sound is created by briefly blocking the airflow with the tongue against the alveolar ridge, just behind the teeth.
There are various categories of oral consonants based on their articulation and acoustic features, such as plosives, fricatives, nasals, approximants, and others. Each category has its own distinct manner of articulation and sound characteristics. Oral consonant sounds are an essential component of human speech and are used in nearly all languages to convey meaning and facilitate communication.
Etymology of ORAL CONSONANT
The word "oral" in the term "oral consonant" comes from the Latin word "ōrālis", which means "pertaining to the mouth". It is derived from the Latin noun "ōs" meaning "mouth".
The word "consonant" is derived from the Latin word "consonāns", which means "sounding together". In Latin, "con-" means "together" and "sonāns" means "sounding". Over time, the meaning of "consonant" has evolved to refer specifically to speech sounds that are produced with a constriction or closure in the vocal tract, as opposed to vowel sounds.
