a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5257 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish
| Message 1 of 16 13 July 2010 at 3:15pm | IP Logged |
I'm very curious about this. I'm not sure about the rarest vowel, but the bilabial trill seems to be quite rare.
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eumiro Bilingual Octoglot Groupie Germany Joined 5275 days ago 74 posts - 102 votes Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, French, English, German, Polish, Spanish, Russian Studies: Italian, Hungarian
| Message 2 of 16 13 July 2010 at 3:42pm | IP Logged |
The Czech sound for 'ř' seems to be quite rare.
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GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5524 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French
| Message 3 of 16 13 July 2010 at 4:21pm | IP Logged |
I've been curious about this, and also if there's a language that rolls two types of Rs at the same time. That makes an amazing sound.
Edited by GREGORG4000 on 13 July 2010 at 4:22pm
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anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6204 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French
| Message 4 of 16 13 July 2010 at 5:04pm | IP Logged |
I would say any linguolabial consonant is quite rare, in addition to the bilabial trill that you mentioned and others. As far as vowels, I don't know, but probably something that's front/rounded or back/unrounded, creaky, nasal, long, etc.
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Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek
| Message 5 of 16 14 July 2010 at 4:11am | IP Logged |
I'm learning some Korean, and its tense (faucalized) consonants seem to be pretty rare — the only other language
Wikipedia lists as having these sounds is Dinka, a language spoken in the southern Sudan.
Also, Japanese has the voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ], which is only found in a smattering of other odd languages,
like Maori and Turkmen.
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anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6204 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French
| Message 6 of 16 14 July 2010 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
Captain Haddock wrote:
Also, Japanese has the voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ], which is only found in a smattering of other odd languages,
like Maori and Turkmen. |
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Interestingly, the voiceless bilabial fricative is relatively common in South America. I could give you at least 15 languages that have it as a phoneme. In contrast, /f/ is relatively rare in that area. (I just realized you said "odd" languages--what is my life coming to when Resigaro and Yaminahua are not odd languages to me?! :p)
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egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5697 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch
| Message 7 of 16 14 July 2010 at 6:37am | IP Logged |
Definitely the nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill—so rare it hasn't yet been
added to the IPA. The proposed symbol is Double Dot Wide O:
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MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5810 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German
| Message 8 of 16 14 July 2010 at 8:39am | IP Logged |
egill wrote:
Definitely the nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill—so rare it hasn't yet been
added to the IPA. The proposed symbol is Double Dot Wide O:
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Thank god I was alone when I tried pronouncing that!
The rarest consonant is probably the Swedish [ɧ], the sje sound.
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