American English has 24 consonants and 13 vowels, depending on the dialect. The language with the fewest sounds is Rotokas, with 11 phonemes. It’s spoken by ~4,000 people on the island of Bougainville, to the east of New Guinea. The language with the most sounds is Taa (!Xoon), a Khoisan language spoken in the Kalahari Desert. Analyses range anywhere from 89 to 107 phonemes. #language #languages #linguistics #sounds #history #phonetics | Linguistic Discovery