what is a phoneme in linguistics
Noun. 1. phoneme - (linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language. linguistics-the scientific study of language.speech sound, phone, sound - (phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language.allophone - (linguistics) any of various acoustically different forms of the same phoneme.Translations.peech sound, phone, sound - (phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language. allophone - (linguistics) any of various acoustically different forms of the same phoneme. Translations.