To put a theoretical upper end on phonetic alphabets, theInternational Phonetic Alphabet which was created to encompass all known languages has:
There are also symbols for things such as clicks - not sure if they were counted in the above.
I’m not clear why Thai is not considered an alphabet. It has individual, discrete letters and is always referred to in everyday language as an alphabet.
EDIT: Okay, on closer inspection of the “abugida” entry, it’s a little clearer. But it seems very nitpicky.
But a syllable is a sound, too, just a longer one. And for several letters, the sound represented can be a syllable itself.
It’s still a reasonable distinction to make. Just as it’s reasonable to distinguish writing systems where symbols are used for whole words. Particularly for purposes of this discussion, as syllabaries will tend to require more symbols than a phonetic alphabet, as I alluded to. Logographic systems will require even more, of course.
Under the dictionary definition, Thai easily qualifies as an alphabet. But so does Chinese for that matter. Linguists apparently put a little more rigor into their definitions than common folk, which is what the dictionary represents. Lumpers vs. splitters again. Notice that the dictionary definition says “especially,” which means that “in general, but not exclusively” in dictionary-speak.
No, some syllables are single sounds while other syllables are groups of sounds. Here is a good discussion of the syllable.
Monty, from the perspective of “what’s a phoneme?”, how does phonology deal with affricates (e.g., English J and X) and diphthongs?
Should be. Clicks are inlcuded in the “Consonants (Non-Pulmonic)” section of the IPA chart.
Polycarp: That would depend on the language. A phoneme is a different concept than a phone.