Ahomophone (/ˈhɒməfoʊn,ˈhoʊmə-/)[a] is a word that ispronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may bespelled the same, for examplerose (flower) androse (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, as inrain,reign, andrein. The termhomophone sometimes applies to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as a counterpart. Any unit with this property is said to behomophonous (/həˈmɒfənəs/).
Homophones that are spelled the same are bothhomographs andhomonyms. For example, the wordread, in "He is wellread" and in "Yesterday, Iread that book".[b]
Homophones that are spelled differently are also calledheterographs, e.g.to,too, andtwo.
Homophones are often used to createpuns and to deceive the reader (as incrossword puzzles) or to suggest multiple meanings. The last usage is common inpoetry and creativeliterature. An example of this is seen inDylan Thomas's radio playUnder Milk Wood: "The shops in mourning" wheremourning can be heard asmourning ormorning. Another vivid example isThomas Hood's use ofbirth andberth as well astold andtoll'd (tolled) in his poem "Faithless Sally Brown":
In someaccents, various sounds havemerged in that they are no longer distinctive, and thus words that differ only by those sounds in an accent that maintains the distinction (aminimal pair) are homophonous in the accent with the merger. Some examples fromEnglish are:
Wordplay is particularly common in English because the multiplicity of linguistic influences offers considerable complication in spelling and meaning and pronunciation compared with other languages.
Malapropisms, which often create a similar comic effect, are usually near-homophones. See alsoEggcorn.
During the 1980s, an attempt was made to promote a distinctive term for same-sounding multiple words or phrases, by referring to them as "oronyms",[c]but since the termoronym was already well established inlinguistics as anonomastic designation for a class oftoponymic features (names of mountains, hills, etc.),[2] the alternative use of the same term was not well-accepted in scholarly literature.[3]
There are online lists of multinyms. In English, concerning groups of homophones (excluding proper nouns), there are approximately 88 triplets, 24 quadruplets, 2 quintuplets, 1 sextet, 1 septet, and 1 octet. The octet is:
Other than the common wordsraise andrays, this octet includes
If proper names are included, then a possible nonet would be:
Certain word pairs that were historically variant spellings of the same words, but eventually standardized as distinct homophonous words by mere spelling, include:
Its was merely the genitive form ofit and derived by adding the apostrophe ands, thus originally speltit's, making it also ahomograph ofit's (contraction ofit is/has). The genitiveit's was retained even toward the early 19th century.[7] The spelling ofaisle[12] (fromMiddle Frenchaisle,Old Frenchaile,Latinālam) was altered with thesilent letters due to its historical homophony withisle (Old Frenchisle, Latinīnsulam) in both French and English. Spelling alteration (often based onetymology) can also obscure homophony, such as the case ofcolonel, which prevailed over the historical variantcoronel by the late Modern English period, but which is now still pronounced identically tokernel as if ther were still there in the spelling.[7] Theye indye is purposefully retained in its forms, especially its present participledyeing, in order to distinguish it from the homophonousdying, which is the present participle ofdie.
Homophones can arise from borrowed words which end up being pronounced the same in English, such asprofit (ultimately from Latinprofectus) andprophet (ultimately from Greek προφήτης). Sometimes the English words are even homographs, such asquarry ('stone mine', from Latinquadraria) andquarry ('thing that is pursued', from Latincorata) orpolicy ('way of management', ultimately from Greekπολῑτείᾱ) andpolicy ('insurance contract', from Greekἀπόδειξις via Latinapodīssa,Italianpolizza and Frenchpolice)—[13]see the discussion ofEnglish homographs from different Greek origins.
Many words were historically heterophonous, but after historical sound changes, including theGreat Vowel Shift andvarious vowel mergers, they became homophonous. For example,ail andale, both pronounced/ɛjl/ in Modern English, were respectivelyeile(n)/ˈɛjlə(n)/ andale/ˈaːlə/ in Middle English before the Great Vowel Shift. The verbslie (past tense and past participlelied) andlie (past tenselay, past participlelain) used to belēogan[ˈleoːɣɑn] andliċġan[ˈliddʒɑn] in Old English; whilewill (past tensewould) andwill (past tense and past participlewilled) used to bewillan[ˈwiɫɫɑn] andwillian[ˈwiɫɫiɑn].
Ax(e) (Middle Englishax(i)e(n),Old Englishāxian/ācsian), an obsolescent variant ofask (Middle Englishask(i)e(n), Old Englishāscian), is homophonous withax(e) (cutting tool) in some Scottish accents, but witharcs in some English accents such asMulticultural London English.[14]
Epenthesis, which often occurs at the boundary between anasal and africative, can cause some words that are phonemically distinct to become phonetically homophonous. For example,assistance may be pronounced[əˈsɪstənts], with an additionalt like inassistants.
The Portuguese language has one of the highest numbers of homophones.[citation needed] For example,jogo 'I throw', 'I play', 'match (sports)', and 'game' (in dialects like Paulistano it is not homophonic, while in Caipira it is).
There are many homophones in present-day standard German. As in other languages, however, there exists regional and/or individual variation in certain groups of words or in single words, so that the number of homophones varies accordingly. Regional variation is especially common in words that exhibit the long vowelsä ande. According to the well-known dictionaryDuden, these vowels should be distinguished as /ɛ:/ and /e:/, but this is not always the case, so that words likeÄhre (ear of corn) andEhre (honor) may or may not be homophones.Individual variation is shown by a pair likeGäste (guests) –Geste (gesture), the latter of which varies between /ˈɡe:stə/ and /ˈɡɛstə/ and by a pair likeStiel (handle, stalk) –Stil (style), the latter of which varies between /ʃtiːl/ and /stiːl/.
Besides websites that offer extensive lists of German homophones,[15] there are others which provide numerous sentences with various types of homophones.[16] In the German language homophones occur in more than 200 instances. Of these, a few are triples like
Most are couples likelehren (to teach) –leeren (to empty).
Spanish has many homophones, but fewer than English. Some are homonyms, such asbasta, which can either mean 'enough' or 'coarse', and some exist because of homophonous letters. For example, the lettersb andv are pronounced exactly alike, so the wordsbasta (coarse) andvasta (vast) are pronounced identically.[17]
Other homonyms are spelled the same, but mean different things in different genders. For example, the masculine nounel capital means 'capital' as in 'money', but the feminine nounla capital means 'capital city'.[18]
There are many homophones in Japanese, due to the use ofSino-Japanese vocabulary, where borrowed words and morphemes from Chinese are widely used in Japanese, but many phonemic contrasts, such as the originalwords' tones, are lost.
An extreme example is the pronunciation[kì̥kóō] which, accounting for the "flat"pitch accent, is used for the following words:
Upon adoption fromMiddle Chinese intoEarly Middle Japanese, certain sounds were modified or simplified to match Japanese phonology, causing homophony. For example, in the above list,機構,稀覯,季候,気功,起稿,帰校 and紀行 may have been pronounced[kɨj˧kəw˥˩],[hɨj˧kəw˥˩],[kwi˥˩ɦəw˥˩],[kʰɨj˥˩kəwŋ˧],[kʰɨ˧˥kaw˧˥],[kuj˧ɦaɨw˥˩]and[kɨ˧˥ɦaɨjŋ˧] in Middle Chinese, but[kikou],[kikou],[kikou],[kikoũ],[kikau],[kikau]and[kikaũ] in Japanese. Furthermore, there were vowel fusions and mergers duringLate Middle Japanese which furthered even more homophony. For example,機構,奇功,起稿 and紀行 were once pronounced distinctly as[kikou],[kikoũ],[kikau]and[kikaũ], but now all as[kikoo].
The Korean language contains a combination of words that strictly belong to Korean and words that areloanwords from Chinese. Due to Chinese being pronounced with varyingtones and Korean's removal of those tones, and because the modern Korean writing system, Hangeul, has a more finite number of phonemes than, for example, Latin-derived alphabets such as that of English, there are many homonyms with both the same spelling and pronunciation.For example
There are heterographs, but far fewer, contrary to the tendency in English. For example,
Usinghanja (한자;漢字), which areChinese characters, such words are written differently.
As in other languages, Korean homonyms can be used to make puns. The context in which the word is used indicates which meaning is intended by the speaker or writer.
Due to phonological constraints inMandarin syllables (as Mandarin only allows for an initial consonant, a vowel, and a nasal or retroflex consonant in respective order), there are only a little over 400 possible unique syllables that can be produced,[19] compared to over 15,831 in the English language.[20]
Chinese has an entire genre of poems taking advantage of the large amount of homophones calledone-syllable articles, or poems where every single word in the poem is pronounced as the same syllable if tones are disregarded. An example is theLion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den.
Like all Chinese languages, Mandarin uses phonemic tones to distinguish homophonic syllables; Mandarin has five tones. A famous example,
Although all these words consist of the same string of consonants and vowels, the only way to distinguish each of these words audibly is by listening to which tone the word has, and as shown above, saying a consonant-vowel string using a different tone can produce an entirely different word altogether. If tones are included, the number of unique syllables in Mandarin increases to at least 1,522.[citation needed]
However, even with tones, Mandarin retains a very large amount of homophones.Yì, for example, has at least 125 homophones,[21] and it is the pronunciation used forChinese characters such as 义, 意, 易, 亿, 议, 一, and 已.
There are even place names in China that have identical pronunciations, aside for the difference in tone. For example, there are two neighboring provinces with nearly identical names,Shanxi (山西) andShaanxi (陕西). The only difference in pronunciation between the two names are the tone in the first syllable (Shanxi is pronouncedShānxīⓘ whereas Shaanxi is pronouncedShǎnxīⓘ). As most languages exclude thetonediacritics when transcribing Chinese place names into their own languages, the only way to visually distinguish the two names is to write Shaanxi inGwoyeu Romatzyhromanization. Otherwise, nearly all other spellings of placenames in mainland China are spelled usingHanyu Pinyin romanization.
Many scholars believe that the Chinese language did not always have such a large number of homophones and that the phonological structure of Chinese syllables was once more complex, which allowed for a larger amount of possible syllables so that words sounded more distinct from each other.
Scholars also believe that Old Chinese had no phonemic tones, but tones emerged inMiddle Chinese to replace sounds that were lost from Old Chinese. Since words in Old Chinese sounded more distinct from each other at this time, it explains why many words inClassical Chinese consisted of only one syllable. For example, theStandard Mandarin word 狮子(shīzi, meaning "lion") was simply 狮 (shī) in Classical Chinese, and the Standard Mandarin word 教育 (jiàoyù, "education") was simply 教 (jiào) in Classical Chinese.
Since many Chinese words became homophonic over the centuries, it became difficult to distinguish words when listening to documents written in Classical Chinese being read aloud. One-syllable articles like those mentioned above are evidence for this. For this reason, many one-syllable words from Classical Chinese became two-syllable words, like the words mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Even with the existence of two- or two-syllable words, however, there are even multisyllabic homophones. And there are also a lot of harmonic words. The cultural phenomenon brought about by such linguistic characteristics is that from ancient times to the present day, people have been keen to play games and jokes with homophonic and harmonic words. In modern life, the influence of homophones can be seen everywhere, from CCTV evening sketch programmes, folk art performances and popular folk life. In recent years, receiving the influence of Internet pop culture, young people have invented more new and popular homophones.[22] Homophones even play a major role in daily life throughout China, including Spring Festival traditions, which gifts to give (and not give), political criticism, texting, and many other aspects of people's lives.[23]
Another complication that arises within the Chinese language is that in non-rap songs, tones are disregarded in favor of maintainingmelody in the song.[24] While in most cases, the lack of phonemic tones in music does not cause confusion among native speakers, there are instances wherepuns may arise.
Subtitles in Chinese characters are usually displayed on music videos and in songs sung on movies and TV shows to disambiguate the song's lyrics.
The presence of homophones in theRussian language is associated in some cases with the phenomenon of devoicing of consonants at the end of words and before another consonant sound, in other cases with the reduction of vowels in an unstressed position. Examples include: порог — порок — парок, луг — лук, плод — плот, туш — тушь, падёж — падёшь, бал — балл, косный — костный, предать — придать, компания — кампания, косатка — касатка, привидение — приведение, кот — код, прут — пруд, титрация — тетрация, комплимент — комплемент.
Also, in reflexive verbs, the infinitive and the present (or simple future) tense of the third person of the same verb are often pronounced the same way (in writing they differ in the presence or absence of the letterЬ (soft sign) before the postfix -ся): (надо) решиться — (он) решится, (хочу) строиться — (дом) строится, (металл может) гнуться — (деревья) гнутся, (должен) вернуться — (они) вернутся. This often leads to incorrect spelling of reflexive verbs ending with -ться/-тся: in some cases, Ь is mistakenly placed before -ся in the present tense of the third person, while in others, on the contrary, Ь before -ся is missing in the infinitive form.
It is estimated that there are approximately 4,500 to 4,800 possible syllables in Vietnamese, depending on the dialect.[25] The exact number is difficult to calculate because there are significant differences in pronunciation among the dialects. For example, the graphemes and digraphs "d", "gi", and "r" are all pronounced /z/ in the Hanoi dialect, so the wordsdao (knife),giao (delivery), andrao (advertise) are all pronounced /zaw˧/. In Saigon dialect, however, the graphemes and digraphs "d", "gi", and "v" are all pronounced /j/, so the wordsdao (knife),giao (delivery), andvao (enter) are all pronounced /jaw˧/.
Pairs of words that are homophones in one dialect may not be homophones in the other. For example, the wordssắc (sharp) andxắc (dice) are both pronounced /săk˧˥/ in Hanoi dialect, but pronounced /ʂăk˧˥/ and /săk˧˥/ in Saigon dialect respectively.
Pseudo-homophones arepseudowords that arephonetically identical to a word. For example, groan/grone and crane/crain are pseudo-homophone pairs, whereas plane/plain is a homophone pair since both letter strings are recognised words. Both types of pairs are used inlexical decision tasks to investigateword recognition.[26]
Homophones, specifically heterographs, where one spelling is of a threatening nature and one is not (e.g. slay/sleigh, war/wore) have been used in studies ofanxiety as a test of cognitive models that those with high anxiety tend to interpret ambiguous information in a threatening manner.[27]
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