OT: oligolexemic phonemes (was: Re: Using word generators

Alex Fink, On 10/01/2007 01:04:
> On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 21:13:40 +0100, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
>> There are some cases of extremely rare phonemes.  For example,
>> in Arabic the phoneme /5/ occurs, or so have I been told, in only
>> one single lexeme, namely the word for 'God'.
>
> Yeah, that's what I've heard as well.  The first example to come to my mind
> was weaker: IIRC Ubykh /v_?\/ occurs in just seven roots, four of them
> having the shape /v_?\a/.
cool datum! (Can knowledge of such arcane minutiae be entirely healthy? One can't
help imagining it has been acquired by long endless days in dusty libraries,
leaving no time for gamboling with paramours in meadows, or for
character-building rambunctiousness on the sports field...)

&
Alex Fink, On 10/01/2007 18:44:
> isn't there a lect of English in which "gone" has a unique vowel not found
> anywhere else?
In Australian English the vowel of _gone_ occurs in no other word.
In many but not all accents of the north of England, the vowel of _owt_ and/or
_nowt_ occurs in no other word.
In a few accents of the north west of England, the vowel of _yeah_ (and/or
_feah_) occurs in no other word.

(If anybody knows any other exx in English, please please let me know.)

This is one of my occasional "any remarkable phenomenon you find in some exotic
language probably also occurs in some dialect of English" posts.

--And.