Chroneme

A Chronem (from Greek χρόνος, chronos, "time" ) describes the duration of sounds and is used to distinguish phonemes, and thus also of words. In German there are two Chroneme, the brevity and the length for vowels.

Example:

• Spell, chop ( vocal soon)
• Train, hook ( vowel length )

In other languages ​​, such as Finnish or Japanese, there are short and long consonants, doubled consonants are pronounced here longer. The Estonian has even three Chroneme ( short, long, long ) for vowels and consonants.

• Phonetics