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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Dear colleagues, it is still an enigma for me why
in some languages labial consonants are used more frequently while in some other
palatal or guttural consonants are preferred. When I asked J.Greenberg about it
in 1973, he wrote me that he was wondering about that as well. I think that
J.Greenberg published an article on the frequency of speech sounds in the
chain of some Amer.Indian language. Is that true? Do you know Greenberg's
article on the frequency of occurrence of speech sounds? He urged me to
calculate the frequencies of phonemic occurrence in different world
languages. I have calculated the degree of the use of the guttural
consonants in the speech sond chain in the world languages. By guttural
consonants I mean velar, uvular, pharingeal and glottal consonants. The use
of guttural was calculated in per cent to all sounds in the speech sound
chain. The least guttural languages are Rumanian (1,45%) and Latvian
(5.55%), while the most guttural are Wichita (30.23%) and Naukan Eskimo
(26.76%). It means nearly every third speech sound in the chain is guttural. I
can send my list of publications to those interested. Please, write to <A
href="mailto:yutamb@mail.ru">yutamb@mail.ru</A> Be well, remain yours most
gratefully for different fruitful discussions on the list, Yuri Tambovtsev,
Novosibirsk</FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>