Counting the Phonemes in a Language

A look at what phonemes are, and how to count them in a language, with a specific look at Standard Chinese. A sequel to my video "Chinese Doesn't Have Many Syllables": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMI6Mbx8lbw

SORRY! The stress in French goes on the second syllable. I literally speak French (ish) I don't know how I would mess that up.

This video gets very technical somewhere around the halfway mark, so don't worry if you don't get all of it.

PLEASE NOTE: there are many, MANY more ways to analyse Standard Chinese phonemes. I'm not saying that these are the only three analyses, nor that they are the three most common, nor that they are the three best. Many of the features presented can be swapped around and pieced together to make new analyses (eg. getting rid of the zero-onset phoneme but not fusing the palatal/retroflex series). This is only meant to be an exercise and some thoughts about phonemic analysis.

Sources:

Chao, Yuen Ren. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Duanmu, San (2000). The Phonology of Standard Chinese. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lee, Wai-Sum; Zee, Eric (2003). "Standard Chinese (Beijing)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 33 (1): 109–112.

0:00 Introduction
1:45 What is a Phoneme?
3:50 Suprasegmental Phonemes
5:05 Segmental Phonemes
5:37 Phonemic Analysis of Standard Chinese
8:21 Ending/Outro
Written and Created by Me
Art by kvd102
Thanks to my patrons!

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=73482298

Translations:
Leeuwe van den Heuvel - Dutch
Pasquale D'Ambrosio - Italian

Видео Counting the Phonemes in a Language канала K Klein