Re: Number eight! (was: Re: Number nine, number nine.,..)

On Wed, 10 May 2000, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> At 00:19 10/05/00 CDT, you wrote:
> >I was thinking the other day while on the bus, and wondered what would be
> >the minimum practical phonology for a language.  (Which is in contrast to my
> >plans for Tech, where I wanted as large a phonology as reasonably (?)
> >possible.)  I came up with six consoannts and three vowels:
>
> Hey hey... one of my first conlangs does better, with only eight phonemes:
> - four consonnants: k, m, s, f
> - four vowels: a, i, o, u
> Syllable structure V, CV, VC, or CVC, with CC-clusters allowed at the
> beginning of a word.
You've both got me beat.  proto-Chanan had:

p t tS k
w l r
m n
a e u

Twelve -- a comparative extravagance!  But my sources attested them
all; what could I do?

Possible syllables were (I)V(n)
 where I= Tr or C
 where T= p t k
 and C = any consonant

That makes, let's see, I think 78 possible syllables.  (13 possible I
including zero; 3 possible V; 2 possible (n) including zero)