basic units of sound in a language are called
Phoneme A phoneme (/ˈfoʊniːm/) is one of the units of sound (or gesture in the case of sign languages, see chereme) that distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, the sound patterns /θɪn/ (thin) and /dɪn/ (din) are two separate words distinguished by the substitution of one phoneme, /θ/, for another phoneme, /d/. (Two words like this that differ in meaning through a contrast of a single phoneme form what is called a minimal pair). In many other languages these would be interpreted as exactly the same set of phonemes (i.e. /θ/ and /d/ would be considered the same).