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Re: the sound [a]

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 4, 2004, 19:25
Danny Wier wrote:
> Now there are some languages that lack /u/, and Japanese is a famous case. > It has the unrounded counterpart /M/, however. Cree and Obijwe among the > Algonquian languages, Navajo and some others in Athabaskan, and various > other Native American languages also lack /u/. I can't think of any > languages anywhere that don't have /i/ - unless you count Georgian, which > lacks /i/ but instead has /I/, so I honestly don't want to count it.
I believe there are some with /e/ but not /i/. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language lists a language Amuesha (Andean-Equatorial family) with a vowel system /e a o/.

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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>