Ao-Naga
The phoneme inventory below shows every sound that functions as a meaningful unit in Ao-Naga — a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Eurasia . With 35 phonemes, it has an average-sized inventory compared to the world's languages. Like many languages in its region, Ao-Naga is tonal — the pitch at which a syllable is spoken changes its meaning. Sounds marked with a dashed border (*) are marginal: they appear only in loanwords or highly specialized contexts and are not part of the core phonological system.
Consonants
fricative
tap
Vowels
Tones
* Marginal phoneme — occurs only in loanwords or rare contexts.
How large is this inventory?
Ao-Naga has 35 phonemes, placing it in the 46th percentile of languages by inventory size — roughly average for a human language.
Compared to English
For English speakers learning Ao-Naga, these are the sounds that will require the most focused practice.
In Ao-Naga, not in English (17)
These sounds don't exist in English — English speakers will need to learn them from scratch.
Most phonologically similar languages
Ranked by Jaccard similarity — the proportion of phonemes shared relative to the combined inventory of both languages.
Compare Ao-Naga with another language
See which sounds are shared and which are unique.