Syllabic consonant

Okay kiddo, have you ever played a game where you had to say a word and clap for every syllable in that word? For example, the word "elephant" has three syllables: "el-e-phant" *clap, clap, clap*.

Well, sometimes there are words where a consonant sound is made into its own syllable. That's called a "syllabic consonant." It's like the consonant gets promoted to be its own little syllable.

For example, the word "bottle" has two syllables, "bot-tle" *clap, clap*. But, if we say "bottle" really fast, it can sound like there's an extra syllable in there, like "bot-tle-uh" *clap, clap, clap*. That extra "uh" is actually a syllabic consonant! It's the "t" sound being stretched out to make its own syllable.

So, a syllabic consonant is just a fancy word to describe when a consonant sound becomes its own syllable within a word.