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There are two languages that are candidates for the world's shortest alphabet, depending on how you define the sounds of the language:
The Central dialect of Rotokas possesses one of the world's smallest phoneme inventories. The alphabet consists of twelve letters, representing eleven phonemes. Rotokas has a vowel-length distinction (that is, all vowels have a short and long counterpart) but otherwise lacks distinctive suprasegmental features such as contrastive tone or stress.
The Pirahã language is one of the phonologically simplest languages known, comparable to Rotokas and Hawaiian. There is a claim that Pirahã has as few as ten phonemes, one fewer than Rotokas, but this requires analyzing [k] as an underlying /hi/. Although such a phenomenon is odd cross-linguistically, Ian Maddieson has found in researching Pirahã data that /k/ does indeed exhibit an unusual distribution in the language.[citation needed]
The 'ten phoneme' claim also does not consider the tones of Pirahã, at least two of which are phonemic (marked by an acute accent and either unmarked or marked by a grave accent in Everett), bringing the number of phonemes to at least twelve. Sheldon (1988) claims three tones, high (¹), mid (²) and low (³).
Wiki User
∙ 7y ago
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoHawaiian has 13 letters (including the apostrophe, which counts as part of its alphabet).
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What is a native alphabet?
It is an alphabet that was created for s specific language, and not borrowed from another language.
Did language come before the alphabet?
well, i suppose a cavemans grunt could be classed as language, and its doubtful they had an alphabet. so yes, language probably came before the alphabet
What is it called when a different language is written with English alphabet?
The English Language uses the Roman Alphabet. Normally it is not noted when another language is written using the Roman Alphabet. Sometimes it is noted when referring to the Romanian Language. In Romania, the Roman Alphabet is used. In Moldavia, the Cyrillic Alphabet is used for the same language. Since all Western European Languages, except for Greek, use the Roman Alphabet, normally no one mentions it.
Does the Maltese language use the Arabic alphabet?
no. It uses the Latin Alphabet.
How many letters are in the Gurmukhi alphabet?
There is no such language as Ourmukhi. If you are talking about the Gurmukhi alphabet, it's used to write the Punjabi language.
Which are the longest ans shortest alphabets?
The Cambodian alphabet is the world's largest alphabet, with 74 letters. The world's shortest alphabet, is Rotokas, used in the Solomon Islands, has only 12 letters. Hawaiian is the shortest alphabet for a well-known language, with 13 letters.
What is DEEF?
feedback By the way, feedback is the shortest word in the English language that contains the first 6 letters of the alphabet.
Which language has the smallest alphabet?
The language with the smallest alphabet is probably Rotokas, a language spoken in Papua New Guinea, which has only 12 letters in its alphabet.
What is a native alphabet?
It is an alphabet that was created for s specific language, and not borrowed from another language.
Which are the shortest and longest alphabets?
Shortest..............Rotokas alphabet{Saloman Islands} 12 letters.Longest.........Cambodian alphabet.........74 letters.The Chinese use 5,000 Symbols or Characters.
Did language come before the alphabet?
well, i suppose a cavemans grunt could be classed as language, and its doubtful they had an alphabet. so yes, language probably came before the alphabet
What language has an alphabet with 75 letters?
There is no language that has 75 alphabets. Most languages only have 1 alphabet.
What is the shortest word on earth?
the shortest word in the English language is a and I
What is the 300th letter of the alphabet?
The alphabet of which language? The English Alphabet only has 26 letters.
What is the moshi alphabet?
The moshi alphabet is moshi monster language.
What language contains 36 letters in its alphabet?
The Welsh language contains 28 letters in its alphabet, while the Slovak language contains 46 letters. Neither language has an alphabet with exactly 36 letters.
What is it called when a different language is written with English alphabet?
The English Language uses the Roman Alphabet. Normally it is not noted when another language is written using the Roman Alphabet. Sometimes it is noted when referring to the Romanian Language. In Romania, the Roman Alphabet is used. In Moldavia, the Cyrillic Alphabet is used for the same language. Since all Western European Languages, except for Greek, use the Roman Alphabet, normally no one mentions it.
