Re: The most common sounds (Was: Re: backwards conlanging)

"H. S. Teoh" wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 10:16:29PM -0500, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> [snip]
> > I have a stupid boring /i/ /e/ /a/ /o/ /u/ vowel system, with two
> > diphthongs.  I guess I'll have to figure out something more complicated
> > that could've simplified down to the 5-vowel system.
> [snip]
>
> Hmm, this gets me thinking... I wonder what are the most common sounds
> that are found in almost every language? From the few languages that I
> know, it seems that the following sounds are most common:
>
> [a]     [i]     [o]     [u]
> [ai] (or [aj])  [au]
> [j]     [w]
> [b]     [d]     [t]     [k]
> [h]     [s]
> [l]
>
> It seems to me that usually what makes a language's phonetic inventory
> unique is the different set of fricatives/approximants/trills employed.
> Seems that languages diverge more on those sounds than on the simpler
> stops and unrounded vowels.
>
> T
>
Not to sure if this connects to well to sounds, but here is the order of
frequency of a couple of languages, which may give you an idea about the
commonality of the various sounds.

English
ETOANIRSHDLCWUMFYGPBVKXQJZ

French
ENASRIUTOLDCMPVFBGXHQYZJKW

German
ENRISTUDAHGLOCMBZFWKVPJQXY

I also have the most common digraphs and trigraphs for these and info on
Italian and Spanish
This comes form cryptography so like I said it might not be useful.

Mario