alofone
1. A phonetic variant of a phoneme; one of several possible pronunciations of the same phoneme that do not distinguish meaning in a particular language
The 't' in 'stop' and the 't' in 'star' are allophones of the same phoneme /t/.
O 't' em 'stop' e o 't' em 'star' são alofones do mesmo fonema /t/.
2. In linguistics, a predictable variant sound that occurs in specific phonetic environments without changing the meaning of a word
The aspirated and unaspirated versions of /p/ are allophones in English.
As versões aspirada e não-aspirada de /p/ são alofones em inglês.
This is a technical linguistics term with no cultural variation. It is used identically in both Brazilian and European Portuguese academic and educational settings, and remains a specialized term primarily encountered in linguistics courses and phonology studies.
Look up more words on Fala2Me
The free English-Portuguese dictionary with real Brazilian accents, NYC slang, conjugator and more
Open Fala2Me →