The Blackwell Companion to Phonology

The study of speech sounds and of the various ways in which they are put together to form languages makes for an extremely important topic. Speech, more than anything, is what makes us human. Research has shown that humans are genetically almost identical with chimpanzees. There are minor differences – humans have much less body hair, have a more upright posture and are far better swimmers. The main difference, however, is the human ability for speech. Humans habitually use a far wider range of sounds than any other known animal species. Furthermore, as we pointed out when reviewing the Gale...