Re: the sound [a]

Quoting Akhilesh Pillalamarri <valardil@...>:

> Everywhere I've read, it says the sound [a] is the most common sound in human
> speech; my personal experience with language agrees with that. I wonder now,
> is the sound [a] found in every language?
As others have indicated, no, not every vowel has [a], or even a vowel closer to
[a] than to any other cardinal vowel.

I've, however, never seen a vocalic inventory of a natlang without any low
unrounded vowel, far as I can recall. Some folks apparently reconstruct
Proto-Germanic as having the set /i e o u/, but I wouldn't accept a
reconstruction as evidence here.

                                                      Andreas

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