x don’t have a phoneme listed; they are not listed as a pure phoneme because the sounds can be represented by other letters or spellings. E.g., the letter
c can be represented by the phonemes /k/ or /s/ as in
cent [sent] and
can [kæn], the letter
x as in
fox [fɔks] can be represented by 2 phonemes /ks/ and the letter
q can be represented by 2 phonemes /kw/ as in
queen [kwi: n]. There are approximately 72 ways to spell these sounds, which one will refer to as phonograms. A phonogram is a letter or combination of letters that represent a sound. E.g.,
ck is a phonogram that says /k/ as in
clock;
oy is a phonogram that says /oi/ as in
boy. The list of the basic phonograms contains the original 70 phonograms that Romalda Spalding used in her work in the 1950's, as well as 2 additional phonograms. The phonograms
nk as in
bank and
our as in
journey were added because the number of words that use them qualify them as "basic" phonograms [3] (Table).
