Change definition phoneme

[monique2208]

Current definition of phoneme is A speech sound that is distinguished by the speakers of a particular language.

What constitutes a phoneme is specific to a given language, this is not so clear in the current definition, but more importantly, a phoneme is not any speech sound that is distinguished, but the smallest unit that can be used to distinguish. The current definition would also include syllables or even whole words.

I suggest we replace it with the following definition: Any of the minimally distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguish one word from another.

[VisLab]

@smakeig

[VisLab]

Google says:

Phonemes are the meaningfully different sound units in a language (the smallest units of sound).

People ask:

"phoneme, in linguistics, smallest unit of speech distinguishing one word (or word element) from another, as the element p in “tap,” which separates that word from “tab,”

Which came from: Britannica.com

@monique @smakeig can we move forward.

[VisLab]

Addressed in PR #140