Front Rounded Vowels
Sounds · one world map for each value
WALS codes 562 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “None”, covers 525 of them (93%); the least frequent, “Mid only”, covers 6.
That value is most frequent in Africa (99% of the 128 languages coded there) and least frequent in Eurasia (80% of 146).
All 29 Afro-Asiatic languages coded have “None”.
Altaic is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 7 of 16.
None525 languages · 93%
High and mid23 languages · 4%
High only8 languages · 1%
Mid only6 languages · 1%
One map per value; each dot is a language WALS codes with that value.
By macro-area
| Value | Africa | Eurasia | Papunesia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | 127 | 117 | 91 | 31 | 85 | 74 |
| High and mid | 0 | 18 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| High only | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mid only | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| All values | 128 | 146 | 93 | 32 | 87 | 76 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 54 | None | 98% |
| Austronesian | 45 | None | 96% |
| Indo-European | 31 | None | 84% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 29 | None | 100% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 26 | None | 73% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 23 | None | 100% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 17 | None | 100% |
| Altaic | 16 | None | 44% |
| Eastern Sudanic | 16 | None | 100% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 16 | None | 100% |
| Oto-Manguean | 9 | None | 89% |
| Tai-Kadai | 9 | None | 100% |
| Uralic | 9 | None | 44% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 9 | None | 89% |