Lwaa
The phoneme inventory below shows every sound that functions as a meaningful unit in Lwaa — a Atlantic-Congo language spoken in Africa . With 59 phonemes, it has a relatively large inventory compared to the world's languages. Like many languages in its region, Lwaa 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
lateral fricative
sibilant fricative
trill
Vowels
Tones
* Marginal phoneme — occurs only in loanwords or rare contexts.
How large is this inventory?
Lwaa has 59 phonemes, placing it in the 92th percentile of languages by inventory size — a notably large inventory.
Compared to English
For English speakers learning Lwaa, these are the sounds that will require the most focused practice.
In Lwaa, not in English (42)
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 Lwaa with another language
See which sounds are shared and which are unique.