www.lesswrong.com/posts/aMPSg8bxRehZy9Ao6/no-newspeak-won-t-make-you-stupid
1 correction found
for a total of 5400 (approximately) possible syllables
This greatly overstates Mandarin’s syllable inventory. Standard Mandarin is usually described as having about 400 syllables without tone and roughly 1,200–1,300 when tones are counted, not about 5,400.
Full reasoning
Linguistics sources do not support a figure anywhere near 5,400 valid Mandarin syllables.
- San Duanmu’s overview of Standard Chinese phonology says Standard Chinese has "just around 400 syllables excluding tones (or around 1,300 syllables including tones)".
- A University of Michigan dissertation similarly summarizes Mandarin as having "only 1200-1300 syllables (400 without tone)".
So the post’s number is not a small rounding difference: it overstates Mandarin’s syllable inventory by several times. Even if one talks about possible combinations rather than attested syllables, Duanmu notes that Mandarin has about 2,000 possible CGVX combinations before phonotactic restrictions, still far below 5,400. That makes the quoted number materially inaccurate for Mandarin phonology.
2 sources
- Chinese (Mandarin), Phonology of
“SC has a very small syllable inventory, just around 400 syllables excluding tones (or around 1,300 syllables including tones).”
- The Importance of Phonological Processing in English- and Mandarin-speaking
“In Mandarin, there are only 1200-1300 syllables (400 without tone) …”