Consonant
Etymology

The word consonant comes from Latin oblique stem cōnsonant-, from cōnsonāns 'sounding-together', a calque of Greek σύμφωνον sýmphōnon (plural sýmphōna, σύμφωνα).

Dionysius Thrax calls consonants sýmphōna (σύμφωνα 'sounded with') because in Greek they can only be pronounced with a vowel. He divides them into two subcategories: hēmíphōna (ἡμίφωνα 'half-sounded'), which are the continuants, and áphōna (ἄφωνος 'unsounded'), which correspond to plosives.

This description does not apply to some languages, such as the Salishan languages, in which plosives may occur without vowels (see Nuxalk), and the modern concept of "consonant" does not require co-occurrence with a vowel.
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