Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

I'd like to correct the following mistake I made:

> 1. Typological analysis of known human languages has convincingly 
> demonstrated that human language minimally requires three vowels.

Human language minimally requires two vowels. A good brief 
cross-linguistic overview is:

Maddieson, Ian. 2005. “Vowel Quality Inventories.” Pages 14-17 in The 
World Atlas of Language Structures. Edited by Martin Haspelmath, Matthew 
S. Dryer, David Gil, and Bernard Comrie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Interestingly, languages with small vowel inventories (ie 2-4 vowels) 
cluster in the Americas and Australia.

Regards,
David Kummerow.