[Fwd: Re: ASCII 1.1 released]

[A. Vine]

All,
>From the Unicode list, someone asked which language needed the fewest
letters/characters to be written.
Andrea

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: ASCII 1.1 released
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 11:34:25 -0800 (GMT-0800)
From: John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com>
To: Unicode List <unicode at unicode.org>

Kenneth Whistler wrote:

> Surely Hawaiian must come close: 5 vowels (a i u e o) and 8 consonants
> (h, k, l, m, n, p, w, and glottal stop).

I'll see your Hawai'ian and raise you Rotokas: same five vowels, only
six consonants (b p t d k g) where b is fricative (like Spanish b, v
between vowels) and d is an alveolar flap (like Spanish r, or American
English t between vowels).  An alternative orthography uses v and r
instead of b and d (either or both), it seems, but in any case only
six consonants.

--

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Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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