Poll of the Day > How do some languages just straight up not have some noises?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like how Russian doesn't use H sounds or Japanese doesn't use L sounds.

Are there any sounds English doesn't use???

We don't roll Rs in English, and I don't think many languages use clicking sounds like some African languages use

Muscles posted...

We don't roll Rs in English, and I don't think many languages use clicking sounds like some African languages use

There are three types of clicks where Im from, x, q, and c sounds.

The c is a less harsh click but Ive noticed Europeans (Romanians, Lithuanians, and Italians specifically) use that same sound as a shorthand for no lol. Don't know if it would technically count as a click though, its the same sound you make when you go tsk tsk tsk.

Just always found it funny that its a shared noise between different languages that means different things.

Japanese R actually is pronounced closer to English L than R. It is similar to Spanish R.

Wait until you see Finnish,Hungarian and Turkish.

many languages straight up dont have a th sound

THEGODDAMNBATMA posted...

Like how Russian doesn't use H sounds or Japanese doesn't use L sounds.

Are there any sounds English doesn't use???

Just thinking of sounds English doesn't use that Japanese does-
The JP tsu sound, English speakers say tsunami but it's a Japanese word and it is often pronounced as "su nami" in English.
The closest I can think of is the contraction "it's".
The JP fu sound. "Fu" is an approximation of the sound, but it is not accurate, the same as JP "L/R" sound.
"Fu" sounds close to "hu". Say "fu" but don't touch your bottom lip on your top teeth.
JP doesn't have L or R, but Eng doesn't have , they are just written as Ra Ri Ru Re Ro as an approximation. Say "La" but don't touch your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
The JP (Nya, Nyo) I can't think of any English usage of. Eng does have Nyu in the words "new" and "nuisance"- even that depends on accents. because it could be pronounced "noo" and "noo sance" in Eng.

There are definitely more examples within Japanese alone, but countless in other languages.

Slavic languages don't even use vowels. It's like they say the word somehow just with the consonants

perfectlydark1 posted...

Just thinking of sounds English doesn't use that Japanese does-
The JP tsu sound, English speakers say tsunami but it's a Japanese word and it is often pronounced as "su nami" in English.
The closest I can think of is the contraction "it's".
The JP fu sound. "Fu" is an approximation of the sound, but it is not accurate, the same as JP "L/R" sound.
"Fu" sounds close to "hu". Say "fu" but don't touch your bottom lip on your top teeth.
JP doesn't have L or R, but Eng doesn't have , they are just written as Ra Ri Ru Re Ro as an approximation. Say "La" but don't touch your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
The JP (Nya, Nyo) I can't think of any English usage of. Eng does have Nyu in the words "new" and "nuisance"- even that depends on accents. because it could be pronounced "noo" and "noo sance" in Eng.

There are definitely more examples within Japanese alone, but countless in other languages.

After reading those Japanese scribble letters it really makes me wish we had a universal alphabet, maybe based off the English one but with dedicated letters for each sound instead of the abortion of pronunciations that so many letters get

Muscles posted...

After reading those Japanese scribble letters it really makes me wish we had a universal alphabet, maybe based off the English one but with dedicated letters for each sound instead of the abortion of pronunciations that so many letters get

theres this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

Tutoria posted...

theres this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

Something like that would be nice, no one would have any problems with pronunciation anymore, and might as well switch everyone to English while we're at it since it's already the language that people use for international business and the 2nd most spoken language with the widest reach (1st is mandarin, but that's only used in like 3 countries and mostly just in China)

what? no

Muscles posted...

After reading those Japanese scribble letters it really makes me wish we had a universal alphabet, maybe based off the English one but with dedicated letters for each sound instead of the abortion of pronunciations that so many letters get

"The Latin alphabet is the only alphabet that's not scribbles"
Took me like a week to learn Kana. Not difficult at all. Kanji on the other hand...

I didn't say that, just the far east alphabets look like scribbles because there's so many disjointed characters that do way too much. The Russian alphabet, for example, looks like an actual alphabet even with their backwards r and weird b thing

I'm learning Navajo and it's hard because it has a few sounds that aren't in English. That's what made it a good code in WWII.