On a recent PBS television program a biologist interested in language
mentioned that there were 1000 different phonemes universally, from
which each language took a small number.
Leaving aside the problem of defining whether one phoneme in a specific
language differs from a similar phoneme in a different language (or,
indeed, the problem of defining phonemes in the first place), has anyone
else come across this number? Is there a reference for this surprisingly
confident claim?
Martin J Ball, PhD
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
|