Rotokas from Papua New Guinea has only six distinct consonants (p, t, k, b, d, g), Hawaiian has eight, but the !Xóõ language from Botswana has forty-seven non-click consonants and seventy-eight different clicks that appear at the beginning of words. The number of vowels also varies considerably: many Australian languages have just three (u, a, i), Rotokas and Hawaiian have five each (a, e, i, o, u), whereas English has around twelve or thirteen vowels (depending on variety) and eight diphthongs.
