Marion Gunn asked:
>
> Ar 17:46 -0000 2000-04-01, scríobh Robert Brady:
> >...
> >patented 'national variant' strategy, where useless characters like { and
> >} can mean letters in strange countries who aren't satisfied with 26
> >letters....
>
> Question: which language requires the fewest number of letters?
> mg
>
Surely Hawaiian must come close: 5 vowels (a i u e o) and 8 consonants
(h, k, l, m, n, p, w, and glottal stop). Depending on how you write it
(long vowels doubled, or with a macron), and glottal stop omitted or
(more correctly) using U+02BB (or ASCII "'" in a pinch), you might need
more or fewer characters, but in any case, it isn't many.
--Ken
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