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Phoneme inventory size and population size

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Jennifer Hay  and
Laurie Bauer
Jennifer Hay*
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury
Laurie Bauer*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
*
Hay, Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand, [jen.hay@canterbury.ac.nz]
Bauer, School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand, [laurie.bauer@vuw.ac.nz]
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Abstract

This short report investigates the relationship between population size and phoneme inventory size, and finds a surprisingly robust correlation between the two. The more speakers a language has, the bigger its phoneme inventory is likely to be. We show that this holds for both vowel inventories and consonant inventories. It is not an artifact of language family.

Information

Type
Short Report
Information
Language , Volume 83 , Issue 2 , June 2007 , pp. 388 - 400
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the Linguistic Society of America

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