Languages with most / fewest phonemes (Philological Room) Language Learning Forum

Languages with most / fewest phonemes
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11 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Aquila123
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Norway
mydeltapi.com
Joined 5310 days ago
201 posts - 262 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Italian, Spanish
Studies: Finnish, Russian

Message 9 of 11

08 November 2010 at 6:04am | IP Logged

How many well-defined vowels is it possibel for alanguage to have?

If a language utilizes all these distinctive features:

Hight: low-semihigh-high
Tongue positions: front-middle-back
Lip position: unrounded-rounded
Nasality oral- nasal

Then the languaage will have 3 x 3 x 2 x 2 = 36 vowels

You can of cource have even finer distinctions, but then the vowels get less well defined.

Some of these voweø qualities are very rare, for example: high - front - rounded - oral

You find it however in Norwegian and Swedish.
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Dragonsheep
Groupie
United States
Joined 5274 days ago
46 posts - 63 votes

Studies: Tagalog, English*
Studies: Japanese, Latin

Message 10 of 11

08 November 2010 at 7:25am | IP Logged

Aquila123 wrote:

Don't forget tone.

cough* Vietnamese cough*

Vowels with diacritics (straight from Wikipedia):

Ngang or Bằng mid level, ˧ unmarked A/a, Ă/ă, Â/â, E/e, Ê/ê, I/i, O/o, Ô/ô, Ơ/ơ, U/u, Ư/ư, Y/y

Huyền low falling, ˨˩ grave accent À/à, Ằ/ằ, Ầ/ầ, È/è, Ề/ề, Ì/ì, Ò/ò, Ồ/ồ, Ờ/ờ, Ù/ù, Ừ/ừ, Ỳ/ỳ

Hỏi dipping, ˧˩˧ hook Ả/ả, Ẳ/ẳ, Ẩ/ẩ, Ẻ/ẻ, Ể/ể, Ỉ/ỉ, Ỏ/ỏ, Ổ/ổ, Ở/ở, Ủ/ủ, Ử/ử, Ỷ/ỷ

Ngã glottalized rising, ˧ˀ˥ tilde Ã/ã, Ẵ/ẵ, Ẫ/ẫ, Ẽ/ẽ, Ễ/ễ, Ĩ/ĩ, Õ/õ, Ỗ/ỗ, Ỡ/ỡ, Ũ/ũ, Ữ/ữ, Ỹ/ỹ

Sắc high rising, ˧˥ acute accent Á/á, Ắ/ắ, Ấ/ấ, É/é, Ế/ế, Í/í, Ó/ó, Ố/ố, Ớ/ớ, Ú/ú, Ứ/ứ, Ý/ý

Nặng glottalized falling, ˧ˀ˨ dot below Ạ/ạ, Ặ/ặ, Ậ/ậ, Ẹ/ẹ, Ệ/ệ, Ị/ị, Ọ/ọ, Ộ/ộ, Ợ/ợ, Ụ/ụ, Ự/ự, Ỵ/ỵ

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CheeseInsider
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5126 days ago
193 posts - 238 votes

Speaks: English*, Mandarin*
Studies: French, German

Message 11 of 11

19 November 2010 at 10:30pm | IP Logged

Ari wrote:

MäcØSŸ wrote:

Apparently the loss of final consonants in Mandarin resulted in the creation of tones replacing them (people will tend to say “bam” with a lower tone than “bak”, so the first may turn into “bá” and the latter into “bā”).

Then where do the tones in the other Chinese languages come from? Cantonese has both many more finals than Mandarin and more tones (6 to 10, depending on how you count). Mandarin has lost tones over time, rather than gained them.

Here's how I understand it: The older Chinese languages were largely monosyllabic (that is, one word one syllable). Tones and a large variety of phonemes was how this was accomplished. Classical Chinese writing is pretty much monosyllabic. The historical development in most of the descendants has been to reduce the number of tones and phonemes, resulting in the need to create more polysyllabic words to deal with the many homonyms. In Mandarin this development has gone relatively far, which means it has few tones left and a mostly bisyllabic vocabulary. Cantonese has preserved more tones and more phonemes, which is why many words that are bisyllabic in Mandarin are still monosyllabic in Cantonese. I'm guessing the other Chinese languages all fall on different places on this scale. I've heard (though don't hold me to it) that Shanghainese only rarely uses tones to distinguish between words anymore, and even their word for "I" is bisyllabic.

EDIT: Cantonese has 19 initials and 53 finals, compared to Mandarin's 23 initials and 36 finals.

Hey ^_^ I think you are right. The dialects of Chinese are on a scale. One end is Cantonese, every single word has a tone that is never altered by the preceding or following word. Then on the other end is a dialect like Shanghainese where, every tone in the sentence is affected by the tone of the very first word in the sentence. Then somewhere in the middle is Mandarin where it's in between the two extremes.

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