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Re: the sound [a]

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Friday, May 7, 2004, 14:36
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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Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>