How to Reduce an Unwritten Language to Writing: III. Phonetic Similarity,Suspicious Pairs,and Minimal Pairs

Abstract

Phonetic analysis can be done with a short list of a few hundred words. First, carefully transcribe the list phonetically. Second, list the inventory of symbols. Third, tabulate the symbols by their articulatory position. Fourth, declare symbols in close articulatory proximity, that is, sounds of great phonetic similarity, as suspicious pairs. Finally, find two words with different meanings that are phonetically identical except for one member of a suspicious pair in each. Finding such a minimal pair implies that we have found a phoneme (writing symbol).