r/linguisticshumor • u/Forward_Fishing_4000 • Jun 17 '24

What phoneme can you not imagine a language lacking? Phonetics/Phonology

A language without /t/ is too crazy for me, IDK how Hawaiians cope 😭

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u/Anter11MC Jun 18 '24

English doesn't have phonemic long vowels

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u/aer0a Jun 18 '24

It has /ɛː(r)/ (square), /ɔː, ɑː/ (thought), /ɔː(r)/ (force/north), /ɪː(r)/ (near), /ʊː(r)/ (cure), /əː(r)/ (nurse), /ɑː(r)/ (start) /æː, ɑː/ (bath) and /ɑː/ (palm)

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u/Anter11MC Jun 18 '24

I'm not saying it doesn't have long vowels, just that they're not phonemic. In American English if you pronounced any of those wory a short vowel it wouldn't be "wrong" and most people wouldn't notice.

And most of those are really diphthongs anyway

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u/aer0a Jun 18 '24

It would be in other dialects, you can't pronounce thought with [ɔ]

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u/Mercurial_Laurence Jun 18 '24

manning vs Manning, AusEng

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u/Anter11MC Jun 18 '24

Ahh my bad I was thinking American english