Vowel Quality Inventories
Sounds · one world map for each value
WALS codes 564 languages for this feature. The most frequent value, “Average vowel inventory (5-6)”, covers 287 of them (51%); the least frequent, “Small vowel inventory (2-4)”, covers 93.
That value is most frequent in Papunesia (65% of the 93 languages coded there) and least frequent in Australia (28% of 32).
Among families with at least eight coded languages, Pama-Nyungan is the most uniform: 14 of 16 have “Small vowel inventory (2-4)”.
Sino-Tibetan is the most divided, its largest group reaching only 13 of 26.
Small vowel inventory (2-4)93 languages · 16%
Average vowel inventory (5-6)287 languages · 51%
Large vowel inventory (7-14)184 languages · 33%
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small vowel inventory (2-4) | 4 | 6 | 9 | 23 | 30 | 21 |
| Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 50 | 73 | 60 | 9 | 53 | 42 |
| Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 74 | 67 | 24 | 0 | 5 | 14 |
| All values | 128 | 146 | 93 | 32 | 88 | 77 |
Inside the largest families
| Family | Coded | Most frequent value | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 54 | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 74% |
| Austronesian | 45 | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 60% |
| Indo-European | 31 | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 55% |
| Afro-Asiatic | 29 | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 66% |
| Sino-Tibetan | 26 | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 50% |
| Trans-New Guinea | 23 | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 74% |
| Austro-Asiatic | 17 | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 76% |
| Altaic | 16 | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 56% |
| Eastern Sudanic | 16 | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 69% |
| Pama-Nyungan | 16 | Small vowel inventory (2-4) | 88% |
| Oto-Manguean | 9 | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 56% |
| Tai-Kadai | 9 | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 56% |
| Uralic | 9 | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 67% |
| Uto-Aztecan | 9 | Average vowel inventory (5-6) | 78% |
Languages to explore
The most fully coded languages with each value.