Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

speech community

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.73 in modern English

Syllables: speech -com-mu-ni-ty
IPA

31

Scrabble Score

15

Letters

5

Syllables

12

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A group of people sharing a language, or a particular way of using that language

Example Sentences

"The phonetic laws always work without the consciousness of the speech community in which they act ; they are due wholly to physiological causes acting unknown to the will of the individual speaker."
"Another language of this group, Cantonese, probably ranks among the world's largest speech-communities."
"Research indicates that men and women in the mainstream US culture tend to form separate speech communities."

Etymology

Probably a calque of German Sprachgemeinschaft.

Inflected Forms

speech communities (plural) speech-community (alternative)

Questions

What does speech community mean?: A group of people sharing a language, or a particular way of using that language
Where does speech community come from?: Probably a calque of German Sprachgemeinschaft.

How to pronounce speech community

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “speech community”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “speech community”.
Repeat and practice — Say “speech community” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.