List of languages by number of phonemes

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This partial list of languages is sorted by a partial count of phonemes (generally ignoring tone, stress and diphthongs). Estimates of phoneme-inventory size can differ radically between sources, occasionally by a factor of several hundred percent. For instance, Received Pronunciation of English has been claimed to have anywhere between 11 and 27 vowels, whereas West ǃXoon has been analyzed as having anywhere from 87 to 164 consonants.

Contents

List

This list features standard dialects of languages. The languages are classified under primary language families, which may be hypothesized, marked in italics, but do not include ones discredited by mainstream scholars (e.g. Niger–Congo but not Altaic). [1] Dark-shaded cells indicate extinct languages. The parenthesized righthand side of expressions indicates marginal phonemes.

List of languages
LanguageLanguage familyPhonemesNotesRef
TotalConsonantsVowels,[ clarification needed ] tones and stress
Arabic Afroasiatic 402810 + (2)Number of phonemes in Modern Standard Arabic. The two long vowels /eː/ and /oː/ are phonemic in most Mashriqi dialects.
Archi Northeast Caucasian 108/99 + 282/8026/19 + 2Count differs from source to source [2] [3]
'Āre'āre Austronesian 15105 [4]
Bintulu Austronesian 25214 [5]
Bukawa Austronesian 37307 [6]
Buli Austronesian 23 + (1)[ clarification needed ]18 + (1)5 [7]
Cantonese Sino-Tibetan 36 + (1)19 + (1)11 + 6 [8]
Cèmuhî Austronesian 26197 [9]
Cheke Holo Austronesian 37325 [4]
Classical Tibetan Sino-Tibetan 35305 [10]
Danish Indo-European 441826 [11]
Dawan Austronesian 18 + (1)11 + (1)7 [12]
Enggano Austronesian 36 + (6)10 + (6)26 [13]
English Indo-European 44
40		2420
16		Counting diphthongs as vowels; General American has 16 vowels while Received Pronunciation has 20 vowels, See English phonology [14]
Finnish Uralic 21 + (4)13 + (4)8 [15]
French Indo-European 34 + (1)20 + (1)14Vowels /ɑ/ and /œ̃/ have been merged into /a/ and /ɛ̃/, respectively, in Parisian French. /ŋ/ is used for English loanwords. [16]
Garo Sino-Tibetan 23 + (1)18 + (1)5 [17]
Gilbertese Austronesian 15105 [18]
Greek Indo-European 23185 [19]
Hamer Afroasiatic 44 + (1)26 + (1)18 [20]
Hawaiian Austronesian 1385 Long vowels are considered to be sequences of vowels and so are not counted as phonemes. [21]
Hindi Indo-European 44 + (5)33 + (5)11 [22]
Hungarian Uralic language 392514The vowel phonemes can be grouped as pairs of short and long vowels such as o and ó. Most of the pairs have an almost similar pronunciation and vary significantly only in their duration. However, pairs a/á and e/é differ both in closedness and length.
Italian Indo-European 30 + (1)23 + (1)7 [23]
Japanese Japonic 20 + (9)15 + (9)5The nine marginal consonants are considered allophones and occur as contrastive only in loanwords and some Sino-Japanese vocabulary. [24]
Karbi Sino-Tibetan 26 + (2)188 + (2) [25]
Kelabit Austronesian 25 + (1)19 + (1)6 [26]
Kilivila Austronesian 24195 [27]
Korean Koreanic 28217Some analysts recognize the existence of another consonant, the /ɰ/ used only in the diphthong /ɰi/, and describe Korean's sound inventory as having as many as ten vowels. Vowels /ø/ and /y/ continue to be used only by older speakers, and have been replaced with /we/ and /wi/, respectively. Most younger speakers have merged /ɛ/ into /e/. [28]
Kosraean Austronesian 473512 [18]
Lahu Sino-Tibetan 33249 [29]
Lauje Austronesian 18135 [30]
Lepcha Sino-Tibetan 40328 [31]
Lisu Sino-Tibetan 41 + (3)31 + (3)10 [32]
Lonwolwol Austronesian 382513 [33]
Malagasy Austronesian 23194 [34]
Malay Austronesian 24 + (5)18 + (5)6 [35]
Maltese Afroasiatic 352411 [36]
Meitei Sino-Tibetan 31256 [37]
Middle English Indo-European 422319Late Middle English [38]
Modern Hebrew Afroasiatic 3025-275 [39]
Mongsen Ao Sino-Tibetan 25205 [40]
Muna Austronesian 30255 [30]
Narom Austronesian 30246 [41]
Nemi Austronesian 48435 [9]
Norman Indo-European 482325 [42]
Nuaulu Austronesian 16115 [7]
Nuer Nilo-Saharan 43 + (5)20 + (5)23 [43]
Old English Indo-European 371918This inventory of Late Old English includes two contrastive long diphthongs, which probably existed. Some scholars suggest the existence of /ʃ/ and two affricates, but this viewpoint is controversial, and the phonemes are not counted here. [44]
Polish Indo-European 37298 [23]
Portuguese Indo-European 27 + (10)19 + (4)8 + (6)Some may argue that /kʷ/ and /gʷ/ are phonemic, and vowel phonemes may be counted using nasal vowels as well.
Rotokas North Bougainville 11/2165/10
Sa'ban Austronesian 322210 [26]
Saaroa Austronesian 17134 [45]
Sinhala Indo-European 40 + (1)26 + (1)14 [46]
Spanish Indo-European 24195 [47]
Thao Austronesian 23 + (1)203 + (1) [48]
Tswana Niger–Congo 35 + (2)28 + (2)7 [49]
Turkish Turkic 31 + (1)23 + (1)8Some consider ⟨ğ⟩ to be a separate phoneme.
Ubykh Northwest Caucasian 86-88842-44 consonants are only found in loanwords.
Urdu Indo-European 614811 + (2)Besides its Indo-Aryan base, Urdu includes a range of phonemes which are derived from other languages such as Arabic, Persian, English, and more.[ citation needed ]
Vaeakau-Taumako Austronesian 21 + (3)16 + (3)5 [50]
Vietnamese Austroasiatic 34 + (1)20 + (1)14While some dialects distinguish ⟨tr⟩ and ⟨ch⟩, the distinction is missing in the Hanoi dialect, described here. [51]
Waima'a Austronesian 33 + (3)28 + (3)5 [12]
Wambule Sino-Tibetan 443311 [52]
Wayan Austronesian 24195 [53]
Wolio Austronesian 36315 [30]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Dixon, R. M. W. (December 11, 1997). The Rise and Fall of Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 32–35, 38. ISBN   0521626544 . Retrieved May 19, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Archi Dictionary" . Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  3. ↑ Chumakina, Marina; Corbett, Greville G.; Brown, Dunstan (September 2008). Archi Language Tutorial (PDF).
  4. 1 2 Blust 2013, p. 203.
  5. ↑ Blust 2013, pp. 182, 183–184.
  6. ↑ Blust 2013, p. 199.
  7. 1 2 Blust 2013, p. 197.
  8. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 171–172.
  9. 1 2 Blust 2013, p. 207.
  10. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 370–371.
  11. ↑ Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN   0-19-151968-5
  12. 1 2 Blust 2013, p. 195.
  13. ↑ Blust 2013, p. 190.
  14. ↑ https://www.readingrockets.org/sites/default/files/the-44-phonemes-of-english.pdf
  15. ↑ Suomi, Kari; Toivanen, Juhani; Ylitalo, Riikka (2008), Finnish sound structure – Phonetics, phonology, phonotactics and prosody (PDF), Studia Humaniora Ouluensia 9, Oulu University Press, ISBN   978-951-42-8984-2
  16. ↑ Léwy, Nicolas (June 26, 2015). Computational psycholinguistics and spoken word recognition in the bilingual and the monolingual (Thesis). University of Neuchâtel. pp. 23–24. S2CID   147462844.
  17. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 244–246.
  18. 1 2 Blust 2013, p. 209.
  19. ↑ Arvaniti, Amalia (2007). "Greek Phonetics: The State of the Art" (PDF). Journal of Greek Linguistics. 8: 97–208. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.692.1365 . doi:10.1075/jgl.8.08arv. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-11.
  20. ↑ Clem, Jenks & Sande 2019, pp. 289–290.
  21. ↑ Blust 2013, pp. 169–170, 212.
  22. ↑ Shapiro, Michael (2003). A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited. ISBN   81-208-0508-9.
  23. 1 2 Coretta, Stefano (2020). Vowel duration and consonant voicing: A production study (Thesis). University of Manchester. pp. 41–44, 46. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/W92ME.
  24. ↑ Mattingley, Wakayo; Hall, Kathleen Currie; Hume, Elizabeth (2019). "Epenthetic vowel production of unfamiliar medial consonant clusters by Japanese speakers". Laboratory Phonology. 10 (1). Association for Laboratory Phonology: 21. doi: 10.5334/labphon.158 . S2CID   214166519.
  25. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 303–305.
  26. 1 2 Blust 2013, pp. 182–183.
  27. ↑ Blust 2013, p. 200.
  28. ↑ Cho, Sungdai; Whitman, John (2019). "Chapter 4: Phonology and Phonetics". Korean: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press. pp. 65, 71, 73, 93. doi:10.1017/9781139048842.005. ISBN   9781139048842. S2CID   212900667.
  29. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 919.
  30. 1 2 3 Blust 2013, p. 193.
  31. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, p. 960–962.
  32. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 903–904.
  33. ↑ Blust 2013, p. 205.
  34. ↑ Blust 2013, pp. 68, 187.
  35. ↑ Blust 2013, pp. 188, 189.
  36. ↑ Fabri, Ray (1922). "Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire". Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire.
  37. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 338–340.
  38. ↑ Bergs & Brinton 2012, pp. 409, 412.
  39. ↑ Reilly, Sullivan. "History, Phonology, Orthography, Volume One: Hebrew". Park City Prospector. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
  40. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 280–282.
  41. ↑ Blust 2013, pp. 182, 184.
  42. ↑ Jones, Mari C. (January 1, 2015). "3 The Linguistic Context". Variation and Change in Mainland and Insular Norman. Vol. 7. Brill Publishers. pp. 34, 37. doi:10.1163/9789004257139_004. ISBN   9789004257139.
  43. ↑ Clem, Jenks & Sande 2019, pp. 501, 503, 507.
  44. ↑ Bergs & Brinton 2012, pp. 257, 258–260, 261.
  45. ↑ Blust 2013, p. 171–172.
  46. ↑ "Research Report on Phonetics and Phonology of Sinhala".
  47. ↑ Hualde 2014, p. 39.
  48. ↑ Blust 2013, p. 172.
  49. ↑ Clem, Jenks & Sande 2019, pp. 45–46.
  50. ↑ Blust 2013, p. 204.
  51. ↑ Kirby, James P. (November 11, 2011). "Vietnamese (Hanoi Vietnamese)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association . 41 (3). Cambridge University Press: 382, 384. doi: 10.1017/S0025100311000181 . hdl: 20.500.11820/6cd61c67-9d35-4214-bb80-734a9a21fea4 . S2CID   144227569.
  52. ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla 2017, pp. 736–739.
  53. ↑ Blust 2013, pp. 211–212.

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References

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