Re: fewest sounds?

On 11/28/05, Reilly Schlaier <schlaier@...> wrote:
> what are the fewest sounds in any language i was wondering how
> many sounds are required to make a language work
Rotokas and Pirahã are probably tied with 11 phonemes,
5 vowels and 6 consonants.  Some think Pirahã
has only 5 consonants so it would have the fewest.

Some languages have only three vowels
-- typically /i/, /u/, /a/ - but I think most of them have
more than the average number of consonants.
I vaguely recall hearing something about languages with
only two vowels, or even none (no phonetic
distinction in vowels, that is), but I'm not sure
how certain these phonetic analyses or
reconstructions are.

A language with very few phonemes will
tend to require more syllables to say
something than a language with many
phonemes, phonotactic constraints
being held constant.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
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