In the Beginning was Information
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and o<strong>the</strong>r sounds are thus not learnt. The child diminishes <strong>the</strong> range ofsounds, until, eventually, <strong>the</strong> frequency distribution typical of his mo<strong>the</strong>rtongue is obtained.Among languages, <strong>the</strong> number of sounds employed, varies between 15and 85. The Rotokas language spoken on Bougainville Island, NewGuinea, has <strong>the</strong> shortest alphabet, namely only 11 letters, six consonantsand five vowels: a, b, e, g, i, k, o, p, r, t, and u. Having said this, we stilldo not know how many different sounds can be produced with <strong>the</strong>se letters.On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, <strong>the</strong> Nepalese language employs more than 60 letters,while 72 letters including obsolete ones, are used in Kampuchean.The largest number of vowels, 55, is found in Sedang, a language used incentral Vietnam; this includes <strong>the</strong> various pitches at which “similar” vowelsare voiced. At <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r extreme, <strong>the</strong> Caucasian language Abkhazian,has only two vowels. Ano<strong>the</strong>r Caucasian language, Ubyxian, employs <strong>the</strong>greatest number of consonants, between 80 and 85, while <strong>the</strong> above-mentionedRotokas uses only six, <strong>the</strong> smallest known number.The sounds which serve as acoustic elements of a language, are known inlinguistics as phonemes. <strong>In</strong> German most phonemes are represented bysingle letters, but often two or three letters are required (e. g. ei, eu, andsch). With only a few exceptions, phonemes are meaningless sounds –<strong>the</strong>y carry no meaning. The most concise meaningful units are <strong>the</strong> morphemes,which are <strong>the</strong> simplest structures at <strong>the</strong> lowest linguistic level. At<strong>the</strong> top of <strong>the</strong> lingual hierarchy is <strong>the</strong> most complex level, namely <strong>the</strong>entire text. Being <strong>the</strong> smallest functional language unit, a morpheme comprisesone or more phonemes, e. g. simple words without prefixes and suffixes.A morpheme is itself part of a lexeme or word, or identical to one.Lexemes are <strong>the</strong> basic units of <strong>the</strong> vocabulary of a language in conventionalform (e. g. singular nouns or <strong>the</strong> infinitive form of a verb). Butmany words appearing in a text are usually inflected forms of <strong>the</strong> lexicalunit. There are very many possible ways of word formation, but all languagesemploy only a fraction of this total. The greatest number of differentsound combinations would be attained when all sounds or phonemescould be combined with all o<strong>the</strong>rs in every possible sequence. Sequenceslike ktx, nxr, or bfg appear to be possible, but do not occur in English orGerman. The allocation of <strong>the</strong> meanings of sound combinations (words)are arbitrary and must be learned through experience. But <strong>the</strong> combinationof words to form sentences, is a different matter:It is very remarkable that, although we do not know <strong>the</strong> meaning of aword which we have not yet heard, we can understand sentences that havenever before been voiced, and we can produce an infinite number of newsentences which can immediately be understood by <strong>the</strong> members of ourlanguage group.207