What are some phonological “universals”?
With the usual caveats that language universals often have exceptions somewhere in the world, below are some guidelines. • All languages have consonants and vowels. • All languages have plosives. • Almost all languages have /p, t, k/; those that don’t, have 2 of /p, t, k/. • Almost all languages have nasals; if one, usually /n/, if two, usually /m, n/. • If language has /J/ or /N/, it will have both /m, n/. • 95% languages have fricatives; 90% have a sibilant; 64% have /h/; rarest fricatives are pharyngeals (about 7% have these). • 95% languages have a liquid; 80% have an L-sound, 77% have an R-sound. • 19% languages have ejectives, 10% have implosives, clicks are very rare. • If language has ejective(s), /k’/ will be one of ’em. • If language has ejective fricative, it will have ejective stops. • Plosives tend to be symmetrical, or very nearly symmetrical (e.g. English p-b t-d k-g), whilst fricative systems tend to be a lot more assymetrical. • The stop system can become quite large,
