There is a language in Central America that has a "regular" sound inventory which can be nasalized, pronounced in a breathy or creaky way AND whistling which would be more phonemes than Taa for sure but I can't find it anymore, I believe it was in one of Nativlang's videos though.. Edit: It's called Jalapa Mazatec, it's a language from Mexico. It has 44 base consonants and 5 vowels, vowel length, tones, creaky voice, normal voice, breathy voice, nasal creaky voice, nasal normal voice and nasal breathy voice and a whistling speech, that's like hundreds of different phonemes!!
The Polyglot Files That would be awesome, especially creaky, breathy, modal voice. I've seen at least 3 or 4 videos about whistled languages like "El Silbo" from La Gomera but NONE about creaky voice, etc.. Btw check out that language I was talking about on Wikipedia, it totally blew my mind!
Hindi also has a surprising number of sounds in its inventory, Indian languages usually have lots and lots of different sounds in them, I counted 80 but I may be drastically wrong as I also counted some sounds which are rarely used or distinguished in colloquial speech. (Btw I haven't counted the endless consonant combinations)
Phoneme doesn't just mean "sound", it means "sound with distinct meaning". Phonetics describes sounds as a whole, regardless of their meaning. I'm sure you knew this, but maybe it could've been described clearer. 4:42 "Nguni" rather than "Nyungi"
Nice video! I have never heard of a language that has more phonemes than !Xóõ. I heard this language on audio files and it seems to be a daunting task to ever be able to learn this language as an outsider, because of the vast amount of sounds that one must learn to discern and pronounce correctly enough for it to be understandable.
Interesting comparison but Taa (also called ǃXóõ as you noted) is not a language isolate. It is part of the Tuu language family (also known as Taa-ǃKwi language family) and has at least one living related language (Nǁng).
You're a bit off on Taa's number of phonemes. If you're counting every sound that can change the meaning of a word due to it's distinction from another similar consonant, the Taa language has roughly 420 phonemes.
I have my next three videos recorded and ready to be edited, but after I'm done those, I'm planning on doing a Languages of the World episode. Do you have any suggestions for countries? :)
If phonemes are sounds that some languages distinguish from eachother, shouldn't long and short vowels be considerd different phonemes? For example a would be different from ā. This is also true about tones, shouldn't à and á be considerd different phonemes?
Bro definitely give arabic a shot what makes it interesting is that it doesnt only have a lot of phonemes but the sounding of each phoneme is quiet distinct from the other like for example the “breath” sound that u said they added to words in my POV shouldnt be considered two separate phoneme with and without the breath sound
Check out Hindi even its standard version has more than 52 sounds 😉 and more sounds were added when Hindi became popular to write Arabian, Persian, Turkic & English letters in India
Years ago I read that English had 46 phonemes, but I think this was due to a single word, beige, which is the only English word with a ZH sound. Also, for most people throughout the world, the TH sound is difficult to pronounce, but English has 2 forms.
teebes2009 "ZH" is, for sake of simplicity, a voiced "sh" sound, and it also occurs in words like pleasure, measure, Asia, usually, etc. It's not that rare.
Hi there! According to a 2015 study by S. Karpagavalli and E. Chandra, it was concluded that Tamil has 45 phonemes. You can check out their study here: www.indjst.org/index.php/indjst/article/download/80681/66529
Just for clarification, I thought Spanish had 11 vowel phonemes including the accent mark (papá means dad but papa means potato) and the umlaut (pingüino)? Then again I suppose the ü is mostly used to modify the g sound
Actually, Spanish has 5 vowel phonemes (a, e, i, o, u el burro sabe más que tú) and stress is suprasegmental. The umlauted u represents labialization of the g. So, the labialized g /gw/ would be a phoneme in Spanish, since it contrasts with non-labialized g, as in guiso.
Sanskrit language has 17 vowels, 31 consonants, 4 accents (mostly used in Vedic Sanskrit), 17×31 combinational sounds obtained by joining vowels and consonants and if accents are applied everywhere then number is 17×31×4 sounds. So in total phenoneme is 17 + 31 + 4 + 17×31 + 17×31×4 = 2687 or more than that due to triple conjunctivitis between vowels and consonants for obtaining different sounds which isn't possible for me to count those sounds.
Check out Hindi even its standard version has more than 52 sounds 😉 and more sounds were added when Hindi became popular to write Arabian, Persian, Turkic & English letters in India
As a native English-speaker, I’ve learned that English is a complete MESS. We basically memorize each word individually (in-terms of writing especially). English may be one of the most phonetically and literary inconsistent widely-spoken languages to exist
Sorry it has 16 vowels and also according to Vedic Sanskrit 16 vowels and 4 accents and 1 vowel which has dot below which makes different sound includes in modern Sanskrit but also uses 4 accents for chanting mantras.
Sanskrit language has 17 vowels, 31 consonants, 4 accents (mostly used in Vedic Sanskrit), 17×31 combinational sounds obtained by joining vowels and consonants and if accents are applied everywhere then number is 17×31×4 sounds. So in total phenoneme is 17 + 31 + 4 + 17×31 + 17×31×4 = 2687 or more than that due to triple conjunctivitis between vowels and consonants for obtaining different sounds which isn't possible for me to count those sounds.
A general rule: Africa has the greatest amount of phonetics (in addition to genetic diversity) and the farther from Africa you go there is presumeably less phonetics in a language (take the Piraha language for example) and less genetic diversity.
The Cosmic Yordle any introductory biological anthropology class or even general anthro will tell you africa has the greatest genetic diversity. If you want I can recommend a book. Also race & ethnicity dont exist from a scientific point
There is a language in Central America that has a "regular" sound inventory which can be nasalized, pronounced in a breathy or creaky way AND whistling which would be more phonemes than Taa for sure but I can't find it anymore, I believe it was in one of Nativlang's videos though..
Edit: It's called Jalapa Mazatec, it's a language from Mexico.
It has 44 base consonants and 5 vowels, vowel length, tones, creaky voice, normal voice, breathy voice, nasal creaky voice, nasal normal voice and nasal breathy voice and a whistling speech, that's like hundreds of different phonemes!!
That's cool! Thanks for sharing. I've been thinking of doing a video on creaky voice and whistled language. What do you think?
The Polyglot Files
That would be awesome, especially creaky, breathy, modal voice.
I've seen at least 3 or 4 videos about whistled languages like "El Silbo" from La Gomera but NONE about creaky voice, etc..
Btw check out that language I was talking about on Wikipedia, it totally blew my mind!
Hindi also has a surprising number of sounds in its inventory, Indian languages usually have lots and lots of different sounds in them, I counted 80 but I may be drastically wrong as I also counted some sounds which are rarely used or distinguished in colloquial speech.
(Btw I haven't counted the endless consonant combinations)
Vietnamese:
23 consonants
11 vowels
27 diphthongs
11 triphthongs
6 tones
Phoneme doesn't just mean "sound", it means "sound with distinct meaning". Phonetics describes sounds as a whole, regardless of their meaning. I'm sure you knew this, but maybe it could've been described clearer.
4:42 "Nguni" rather than "Nyungi"
Actually Russian don't have the "air puff" with T as in English. But yeah I know that was just and example.
Yes that's the problem that English people have when trying to speak other languages. Most other languages don't have aspiration.
@I’m Fatman Cool, my language also has unique sounds, such as nasal diphthongs, which is very rare
IF UBYKH HAS ONLY ONE VOWEL, THEN WHY IS IT CALLED UBYKH NOT UBUKH OR YBYKH?
haha good joke
It's supposed to be /tʷaxəbza/ (twakhebza), but Ubykh is just the English spelling for it (btw it's two vowels, not one)
It has 2 vowels. /ə/ and /a/
Nice video! I have never heard of a language that has more phonemes than !Xóõ. I heard this language on audio files and it seems to be a daunting task to ever be able to learn this language as an outsider, because of the vast amount of sounds that one must learn to discern and pronounce correctly enough for it to be understandable.
Check out the Chechen phonetics, you're gonna be impressed.
Baie interessant, dankie!
Interesting comparison but Taa (also called ǃXóõ as you noted) is not a language isolate. It is part of the Tuu language family (also known as Taa-ǃKwi language family) and has at least one living related language (Nǁng).
Yeah, Cosa hahahaha
Very interesting video.
You're a bit off on Taa's number of phonemes. If you're counting every sound that can change the meaning of a word due to it's distinction from another similar consonant, the Taa language has roughly 420 phonemes.
!Xóõ made me laugh
He:Finding language with most phonemes...
Hindi :Hey ..I am here
Are you gonna do a new "Languages of the world" episode???
I have my next three videos recorded and ready to be edited, but after I'm done those, I'm planning on doing a Languages of the World episode. Do you have any suggestions for countries? :)
Please, what is the answer?
Taa language
Random question, if teapots could talk, how many phonemes do you think their language would contain?
If phonemes are sounds that some languages distinguish from eachother, shouldn't long and short vowels be considerd different phonemes? For example a would be different from ā. This is also true about tones, shouldn't à and á be considerd different phonemes?
Bro definitely give arabic a shot what makes it interesting is that it doesnt only have a lot of phonemes but the sounding of each phoneme is quiet distinct from the other like for example the “breath” sound that u said they added to words in my POV shouldnt be considered two separate phoneme with and without the breath sound
European Portuguese has 54 phonemes (21 consonants, 14 vowels, 19 diphthongs)!!
I think you should check out Indian language Malayalam which has huge amount of different alphabets.
Pretty sure Mandarin has more than 29 since tones should count as separate sounds
What about Chechen?
Yay! A new vid 😀
Most of my Colleagues speak Xhosa, it's very difficult for me to try and learn it because of the clicks.
Do video about sinhala language ....
Griko
18 consonants,6 vowels
0:33 Mờ and bờ , am i correct ?
Check out Hindi even its standard version has more than 52 sounds 😉 and more sounds were added when Hindi became popular to write Arabian, Persian, Turkic & English letters in India
Years ago I read that English had 46 phonemes, but I think this was due to a single word, beige, which is the only English word with a ZH sound. Also, for most people throughout the world, the TH sound is difficult to pronounce, but English has 2 forms.
teebes2009 "ZH" is, for sake of simplicity, a voiced "sh" sound, and it also occurs in words like pleasure, measure, Asia, usually, etc. It's not that rare.
Uncle Podger 😀 So it's settled, English needs 46 letters.
Television, dijon mustard, etc
@@teebes2009 No, the zh sound is one of the 40/44/45.
English incorporates aspiration, but we just don't really notice it. The P at the start of "Pat" is aspirated
Central Asian languages have some different sounds most other languages don’t have
Tamil has 12 vowels and 18 consonants. It has only 30 phonemes...how do u say 45???
Hi there! According to a 2015 study by S. Karpagavalli and E. Chandra, it was concluded that Tamil has 45 phonemes. You can check out their study here: www.indjst.org/index.php/indjst/article/download/80681/66529
Like ட being pronounced like ta and da.
Just for clarification, I thought Spanish had 11 vowel phonemes including the accent mark (papá means dad but papa means potato) and the umlaut (pingüino)? Then again I suppose the ü is mostly used to modify the g sound
Actually, Spanish has 5 vowel phonemes (a, e, i, o, u el burro sabe más que tú) and stress is suprasegmental. The umlauted u represents labialization of the g. So, the labialized g /gw/ would be a phoneme in Spanish, since it contrasts with non-labialized g, as in guiso.
At 6:46 the sound was ħ
Sindhi language has 52 consonants and 16 or something vowels, this language could easily make your list.
Sanskrit language has 17 vowels, 31 consonants, 4 accents (mostly used in Vedic Sanskrit), 17×31 combinational sounds obtained by joining vowels and consonants and if accents are applied everywhere then number is 17×31×4 sounds.
So in total phenoneme is 17 + 31 + 4 + 17×31 + 17×31×4 = 2687 or more than that due to triple conjunctivitis between vowels and consonants for obtaining different sounds which isn't possible for me to count those sounds.
你算错了，应该算元音辅音的排列组合
是啊是啊，人家绝对有时间复制粘贴你的评论然后翻译出来
michiaa has around 92 sounds
His aspirations gave me tingles. 😂
Sinhalese language has a special method of hybridization of its consonants.
I'm not a philologist but I would like to say I think there are 9 vovels and 24 constants in Turkey Turkish.
I only know of 8 vowels. What are your nine?
Palatalization also exists in Turkish.
But which has the least
piraha only has 12 consonants not sure about vowels
Telugu an Indian language has 36 consonants and 16 vowels
Guess how many Tamil has... ;)
Check out Hindi even its standard version has more than 52 sounds 😉 and more sounds were added when Hindi became popular to write Arabian, Persian, Turkic & English letters in India
Consonants and vowels are part of language orthography. Phonemes are the language's phonography
As a native English-speaker, I’ve learned that English is a complete MESS. We basically memorize each word individually (in-terms of writing especially).
English may be one of the most phonetically and literary inconsistent widely-spoken languages to exist
Have u heard sankrit..it has 12 vowels
Sorry it has 16 vowels and also according to Vedic Sanskrit 16 vowels and 4 accents and 1 vowel which has dot below which makes different sound includes in modern Sanskrit but also uses 4 accents for chanting mantras.
Sanskrit language has 17 vowels, 31 consonants, 4 accents (mostly used in Vedic Sanskrit), 17×31 combinational sounds obtained by joining vowels and consonants and if accents are applied everywhere then number is 17×31×4 sounds.
So in total phenoneme is 17 + 31 + 4 + 17×31 + 17×31×4 = 2687 or more than that due to triple conjunctivitis between vowels and consonants for obtaining different sounds which isn't possible for me to count those sounds.
does it mean that American English can be easier than British English?
finally I pronounced ǃxóõ /x͡ǃṍ/
how about french pla plai plu plur
Hindi ?
sindhi has 52 sounds
You again?
chinese probably has more phonemes than what is told in the video because chinese has different tones.
Archi.
ah-xóõ!
Only Bangla has the highest number of phonemes
First Comment!!! Love you!
Andalusian spanish has more sounds
I learn spanish. Which are the other sounds?
A general rule: Africa has the greatest amount of phonetics (in addition to genetic diversity) and the farther from Africa you go there is presumeably less phonetics in a language (take the Piraha language for example) and less genetic diversity.
Africa doesn't have genetic diversity but ethnical
The Cosmic Yordle any introductory biological anthropology class or even general anthro will tell you africa has the greatest genetic diversity. If you want I can recommend a book. Also race & ethnicity dont exist from a scientific point
Saraa M
Race is literally a scientific term...
The Cosmic Yordle actually, no. Google the "AAAs statement on race" on their website which is also something every intro anthro class shows students.
Tamil has the largest number of consonants and vowels.. total 236.. deiiiiiiii
You mean 216 compound characters plus 18 consonants and 12 vowels? Pretty much every alphasyllabary can achieve that amount of characters.
No.
Sanskrit is the language which has most words and sounds in the world
@it's O.K ज़ is the z ज is J.
No.
Tamil 😍
No.
Search for CAMBODIA or KHMER language🇰🇭, you’ll be impressed, thank me later😉
Xix' no shouț jeqjeq
Hindi has a lot of phonemes, probably over 50