COM.on C.A.2:e7/42-51 Online published on Nov. 27, 2008.
doi:10.4236/coca.2008.21007
REPORT
 Diversity Analyses on the Basic Vowel Qualities among the Human Languages
LI Hui
MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433 China; Laboratory for Human Polymorphism Studies, Department of Genetics, School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven CT06520 USA

ABSTRACT: Among the phonemes of human languages, vowels are much simpler than consonents and tones in structure, and therefore providing convenience of diversity analyses. Here basic vowel qualities of 621 languages/dialects were collected from the major linguistic families in the world. The basic vowel quality inventories vary from 2 to 20, and distributed unequally among the geographic regions. In the mass, the vowel inventories are mostly high in Eurasia and low in the Americas and Australia. The Germanic languages and Wu Chinese dialects have the highest vowel quality inventories. After digitizing the vowel qualities, the diversity of vowel quality systems of the world languages was analyzed by the method of NETWORK, which is usually applied to the mitochondrial DNA diversity in genetics. The network of the world vowel systems exhibits a single center expansion pattern, with the most common five-vowel system (aeiou) in the center, indicating that five-vowel system might be the most original vowel system of human languages. Different ways of complication or simplification from the five-vowel system might have resulted in the other types of vowel systems. The digitization of the phonemes will help in developing the field of linguistic statistics.
Key words: Vowel Quality; Diversity; NETWORK analysis; Geographic distribution

Recieved: Nov.24,2008 Accepted: Nov.27,2008 Corresponding: LiHui.Fudan@gmail.com

《现代人类学通讯》第二卷e7篇 第42-51页 2008年11月27日网上发行
研究报告

人类语言基本元音体系的多样性分析

李辉

复旦大学生命科学学院现代人类学教育部重点实验室，上海 200433； 耶鲁大学医学院遗传学系人类多态性研究实验室，美国 康州 新港 06520

摘要：人类语言的各类音素中，元音相对比较简单，在全世界语种间的多样性也比较容易分析。本文收集了世界主要语系的621种语言和方言的元音体系，分析了基本元音 音位总量和元音音系类型的多样性分布。基本元音音位总量在世界语言中从2到20不等，其地理分布很不均衡，体现为欧亚大陆的语言基本元音总量整体偏大，其中日耳曼语和吴语最大，而美洲和澳洲则整体偏小。通过把音 位转化为数字，世界语言的元音音系多样性可以用遗传学中线粒体多态性的网络结构分析方法。网络结构分析发现，最常见的aeiou的五元音音系类型可能是人类语言最原始的元音音系，处于网络结构的唯一扩散中心。其他音系类型可能都是从五元音音系经历不同的过程演化而成的。语音数字化对于语言学的统计分析有启发意义。

关键词：元音 音位；多样性；网络结构分析；地理分布

收稿日期：2008年11月24日 修回日期：2008年11月27日 联系人：李辉LiHui.Fudan@gmail.com

全文链接 Full text: [PDF]

附表1 世界主要语种的基本单元音

Supplement table 1 The basic vowel systems of the major languages in the world [XLS]


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