Figure 1.1 French (and French Creole) spoken at home, 2007
Source: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey
Variation that is less likely to reach the level of consciousness has to do
with the human neurological and vocal apparatus, which is architecturally
and structurally universal and which accounts for the similarities in the
way language is produced and perceived. As a young child acquiring
language, every human being has potentially available to them the full
range of possible sounds. The sounds which will eventually survive and
become part of the child’s language are arranged into language-specific
systems, each sound standing in relation to the other sounds. In linguistic
terms, the study of production and perception of speech sounds is the
science of phonetics; concern with how sounds are organized into systems
is called phonology.
It is in the production and perception of speech sounds as systematic
entities functioning in relationship to each other that there is perhaps the
greatest potential for variation in language, and following from that,
variation leading to change. There are so many changes in progress at any