What is "gemination"

Gemination \Gem`i*na"tion\, n. [L. geminatio.] A doubling; duplication; repetition. [R.]
--Boyle.

1590s, from Latin geminationem (nominative geminatio) "a doubling," from past participle stem of geminare (see geminate).

n. (context phonetics English) A phenomenon when a consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than is done normally.

1. n. the doubling of a word or phrase (as for rhetorical effect)

2. the act of copying or making a duplicate (or duplicates) of something; "this kind of duplication is wasteful" [syn: duplication]

In phonetics, gemination or consonant elongation happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it. Gemination literally means "twinning", and is from the same Latin root as " Gemini".

Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic, Berber, Maltese, Catalan, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Classical Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. Most languages (including English) do not have distinctive long consonants. Vowel length is distinctive in more languages than consonant length, although several languages feature both independently (as in Arabic, Japanese, Finnish, and Estonian), or have interdependent vowel and consonant length (as in Norwegian and Swedish).