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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: universal characteristics that all languages have
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References: <5cdqkv$rop@nimble.mta.ca> <owfamily-2601971413430001@k-pm3-dyn97.pcix.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 07:14:57 GMT
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In article <owfamily-2601971413430001@k-pm3-dyn97.pcix.com>,
Bob Offer-Westort <owfamily@mail.idt.net> wrote:
>In article <5cdqkv$rop@nimble.mta.ca>, cprchrd@mailserv.mta.ca (Christian
>P Richard) wrote [in part]:
>> 
>> But is there anything at all that all (or most) languages haev in common?
>> What would be the most universal phonemes, for example?  What 15 
>> consonants or 10 vowels are the most widespread among all the languages of 
>> the world?  Do all languages have "verbs" as we know them in English? etc.?
>
>I have heard,though I have no evidence to back this information up, that
>the only vowel common to all spoken languages is /u/.  

/u/ or [u]?  I've always been taught that some form of the low, front,
unrounded vowel (i.e. [a]) is common to all languages.  The only possible
exception I can think of it a now-extinct Caucasian language which had
only /@/, although I think [a] was a common allophone of this).  Languages
without [u] are easier to find--Nahuatl and Yoruba, for instance (although
the latter does have [U]).  Also, Attic Greek (at least during the stage
between the shift of [u] to [y] and [o:] (<ou>) to [u]).

>There are several consonants used by all: /t/, /k/, /s/, and /m/.

Nope.  Hawa'ian, for instance, lacks half of these.  (Its only consonants
are [p], [k], [?], [m], [n], [h], [w], and [l]).  Arapaho lacks [m].  I
think [t] (either aveolar or dental) is the consonant common to the most
languages, but I'm not certain and, as shown above, it isn't common to
all.

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
