My understanding is that the most phonemes winner is the !Kung language
(or Koi San or Zhun/twasi or Bushmen of the Kalahari). I have also seen
it listed as the hardest to learn because of its extensive use of
glottal clicks. There are actually four different glottal clicks and it
is very hard for non-speakers to differentiate them. You can hear it
being spoken in the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy". My guess is that
traditional polonisian languages would have the fewest phonemes since
they don't differentiate between a lot of the phonemes that we use. For
example, KAPU and TABOO are the same word in Hawaiian. That said,
however, I don't think that these languages are the easiest to learn
because they have some very long and repetative names for things. The
easiest language would probably be Esperanto. It was created to be an
easily learned language and therefore has consistant pronunciation rules
and no irregular verbs.
Hope that helps,
-Don.
James K. Denson wrote:
TIPS language experts,
These questions were asked today in class and I am clueless as to the
answers.
Please help!
What language has the most phonemes?
What language has the least phonemes?
What language is considered the hardest to learn?
What language is considered the easiest to learn?
J. Kevin Denson
Social Studies Department Chair
AP Psychology/Psychology Teacher
Kempsville High School
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--
Don Allen
Department of Psychology
Langara College
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
V5Y 2Z6
604-323-5871
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