Syllable

The rhythmic unit of speech built around a vowel nucleus, with language-specific rules for its edges.

Core Principles & Analysis

• A syllable parses into onset, nucleus, and coda, with the vowel as its sonorous core.
• Hawaiian allows little beyond consonant-plus-vowel; Georgian piles up clusters like "mtsvane".
• Japanese timing runs on the mora, a subsyllabic beat — "Nippon" counts four.