What is Phoneme?
The smallest unit of sound in a language that distinguishes one word from another.
Phonemic annotation is finer-grained than transcription: it records the sounds actually produced rather than the spelling. It is especially useful for languages with wide pronunciation variation, such as the Arabic dialects.
Phonemic annotation costs noticeably more than transcription, so it is usually only done when the client has a specific need for it.
Related terms
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Transcription
Writing down what is said in a recording. It is the core annotation task in any speech dataset.
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ASR
Automatic Speech Recognition — the task of turning recorded speech into text.
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Full glossary
Every term we explain, in one list.
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Where these terms actually show up, and which ones change a quote.
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Help center
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