Why Some Languages Lack a P Sound 

I will never take P's for granted ever again *sobs uncontrollably*

this channel is the definition of underrated

As a Japanese I'd never realized that native words in my own language don't have P except when it's altered H, until you pointed it out. Wow, linguistics is cool!

On the other hand, Slavic languages have [p] in many native words, but rarely have [f] in them (except interjections), [f] can occur either in loanwords or as a contraction of consonant clusters, usually [x] (or [h]) + [v]. The opposite process also occurs, especially in dialects: words with [f] are pronounced instead with [xv].

The somali language also lacks the "P" sound. It was difficult for me to differentiate between the P and B sounds in English when I was learning it

Here's a list of things I wanted to point out: @0:25 that is correct for modern loans in Modern Standard Arabic but loaning foreign [p] as /f/ in Arabic is not uncommon historically or modernly in an informal manner, many Malay words in the Arabian peninsula are loaned with a /f/ when they have a /p/ in Malay, also historically Ancient Greek /pʰ/ was loaned as /f/ but unaspirated /p/ was loaned as /b/, with some exceptions like Παλαιστῑ́νη /palai̯stǐːnɛː/ being loaned as /filastˤiːn/. @1:45 it's not "pronounced [p] out of convenience" it's that historical /Qp/ [pp] and /Np/ [mp] where not affected by the sound changes that lenited [p] to [ɸ] to [h], similar to how /hu/ isn't pronounce [ɸɯ̟ᵝ] "out of convenience" but rather than original [ɸu] never shifted away from it's original sound because the roundedness (whether protruded or compressed) for the /u/ preserved its bilabial nature, Japanese speakers are capable of saying /Nh/ in compounds like in 半々 /haNhaN/ "half-half" and /Qh/ [hh] in loans like /maQha/ [mahha] for "Mach (number/speed)". @video the overall video lacks looking into why *specifically* [p] gets lost, because all of the cardinal stops ([p t k b d g]) can lenite to sounds like [f θ x v ð ɣ], the thing is it's very frequent for specifically [p] and [g] to be dropped out of the cardinal six, suggesting that there is a tendency to avoid voiceless sounds at the front of the mouth and voiced sounds at the back of the mouth (further hinted at by the extreme rarity of [ɢ] compared to [q]). it should also be noted that with Arabic specifically the story might be more complex, while a very popular theory posits that Arabic only recently before the Islamic conquests lost its /p/ there's actually little evidence for that, Arabic *might* have not had any /p/ sounds for thousands of years for all we know, as most Semitic languages lack a /p/ sound (with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Akkadian being exceptions not the rule!) and many Afro-Asiatic branches also seem to lack a /p/ in many of its languages that might mean that the proto-language might have not had a /p/ (especially Amazigh, Cushitic, and maybe Chadic), and even in the languages that do have /p/ the rest of the labial series looks uneven, for example Middle Egyptian had this /m p β f w/ for it's labials, compared to Arabic /m b f w/, and Proto-Amazigh /m (b) β f w/.

As a member speaker of one of the Haudenosaunee languages (Mohawk), our language family is known for not having any native labial sounds. When we adopt words in Mohawk we normally convert a -b/p- sounds into -gw-, such as the name “Peter” is some dialects is said as “Kwíte.” Then we covert the -m- sound into either -onw- or -w- such as the name for “Mary it can be said as either “Onwá:ri” or just “Wá:ri.”

Strictly speaking, Japanese does not have an 'F' sound. It has a bilabial fricative, the same sound in Greek that gives us the 'PH' digraph in English being pronounced as 'F'. It's more like an 'F' if you pronounced it with your lips instead of your lips and teeth. In other words, t's a bilabial fricative rather than a labiodental fricative.

Okay, but another crucial detail is that /p/ is slightly harder to pronounce than other voiceless stops. Basically, for phonetic reasons, the further towards the front of the mouth you go, the harder voiceless stops become; the further towards the back, the harder voiced stops become. Which is why /g/ also has a certain tendency to be lost, and why voiced uvulars are especially rare.

Thanks for the video! This reminds me: I've always wondered why many Sundanese speakers cannot differentiate p, f, and v. They mostly resort to using /p/ for all of them since it's in their alphabet, which is somehow the opposite of Arabic, Vietnamese, and Japanese.

Here in my country (Philippines), northern luzonic languages don't have the letter p. Most of the time when the tagalog words use "P", it will become "F" on those Northern Luzonic languages like the "Ibanag Language".

Technically, that wasn't the whole story for Vietnamese; while /pʰ/ did disappear from the language after spirantising to /f/ (likely during the Middle Vietnamese period), that doesn't explain how it lacks /p/ word-initially. Both were likely separate phonemes in Proto-Austroasiatic and Proto-Vietic. Historically, there appeared to be a chain shift in the initials that went somewhat like /p/ > /ɓ/ > /m/ (original *m- stays as /m/) from Proto-Vietic to becoming modern Vietnamese, leading to words like 'bốn' and 'muối' coming from PV *poːnʔ and *ɓɔːjʔ. The same process nearly happened with the dental series as well (via /t/ > /ɗ/ > /n/, where we get 'đẻ' and 'nước' from PV *tɛh and *ɗaːk) but /t/ was preserved as a phoneme from other processes, frequently from the fortition of /s/ > /t/. These changes were applied to Sino-Vietnamese loanwords as well.

There is very little info on Japanese language history easily accessible on the web, so I very much appreciate the point about Japanese p shifting to h. There more I learn about phonetics (Japanese or other), the more sense the kana system makes. As a European, the connection between h and b/p has eluded me for a long time as opposed to the other dakuten uses. I think what applies to P also applies to B, which likes to shift to V a lot, at least in European languages. I believe it has done that in all Germanic languages bar High German (compare "to have" vs "haben, "love" vs "Liebe"), in Modern Greek Beta has come to represent a V sound, and I think Castilian Spanish doesn't distinguish at all between B and V?

An interesting opposite of this is korean, which often uses the P sound and even has two different letters for P sounds (ㅃ and ㅍ), all while having no F anywhere in their language or writing system. Loan words like coffee and sofa are written and pronounced with P.

Now knowing what I know, the question arises as to why the “b” sound was chosen in place of the “p” sound in words adapted into Arabic? Was this just the only choice that would’ve made sense, or is there actually a story behind that choice? Also, this is quite good as an explanation. Very clean and concise as a script. One would even say that this is classroom ready!

Hokkien, Hockchow are the only Sinitic languages that retained the original "p" starting in words where it became "f" in other Sinitic languages. For example, 放 is "pang" in Hokkien, "fong" in Cantonese and "fang" in Mandarin. Not only that but it retained the original "h" initial too, for words where it became "f" in other Sinitic languages. For example, 風 is "hong" in Hokkien, "fong" in Mandarin and "fong" in Cantonese. Even the province that the language hailed from, which is 福建. 福建 is "Hokkien" in Hokkien, "Fokkien" in Cantonese and "Fu jian" in Mandarin. *pronunciation may vary across speakers. Mine is based on the way people in my area pronounce these words.

Just a minor correction: "Pirahã" is best pronounced as "Pirahan". Completely eliminating the nasal sound at the end feels very strange to my ears.

Nice job on this video! I learned a lot.

This phonemic shift away from P is super interesting considering it happens in so many different languages! One language that i didnt see being mentioned in the comments is Kannada. A lot of native Old Kannada words underwent the phonemic shift from P to H directly (with no F in the middle i think?). Which is why when other dravidian languages have similar words starting with P, Kannada has it starting with H. Examples include- Milk - pāl(u) in Tamil/Telugu vs hālu in Kannada The number 10 - pattu in Tamil vs hattu in Kannada Pig - pandi in Telugu vs handi in Kannada Name - peyar/pēru in Tamil/Telugu vs hesaru in Kannada and so on... However, kannada keeps the letter p in words that it borrows from sanskrit (and there are a lot of words it borrows from sanskrit) so the phoneme is still pretty common in the language. It's a very interesting phenomenon!

I first wondered why in the Cameroonian language Éwondo "French", "français" is "plési". Eventually I got it: The letter "f" is substituted by "p", "r" substituted by "l", the nasalized "an" is substituted by plan "e" and the accent is shifted to the first syllable. Their word for "German", "ndjaman", is more comprehensible.

It’s so fascinating and makes so much sense that the Japanese writing systems reflect this as well! For example the character は, it is a devoiced consonant sound, but when you add this mark ば a “ducted” it becomes a voiced sound. HA becomes voiced as BA. Then lastly the plosive mark (don’t know the technical name) can be added ぱ to turn HA into PA. This mark indicates the sound is a plosive sound and requires a larger amount of air to make the plosive noise with your lips.

that's a cool video, thanks! I'm sure your channel will grow fast :)

Arabic writing system is so beautiful

Hi, I speak Syriac Aramaic and Arabic and would like to add an information regarding Arabic. It seems that Arabic has dropped the letter P because it abandoned a Semitic feature that we call in Syriac as (the Qushai and Rukakh) which means (hard and lean -sounds-) this feature exists in 6 letters : B - G - D - K - P - T These 6 letters have 2 pronunciations, the Qushai which is the main one (the one above) and the Rukakh which makes the sounds become like this : V - Gh - Dh (th as in the) - Kh - F - Th (as in theatre) As you guessed the P sound and the F sound are the same letter ܦ݁ for P and ܦ݂ for F The same word can accept the two pronunciations depending on known rules or cases, for example the word ܦ݁ܽܘܡܳܐ which means 'mouth' is pronounced 'Pumo' but if you added ܕ before it to mean (because of - that of mouth) the word will be become ܕܦ݂ܽܘܡܳܐ 'dFumo' And Arabic doesn't have this anymore and treats the two sounds of 4 of these letters as separate different letters

I have always thought about it. This is an interesting explanation.

Good video, subscribed!

before the Malays adapt to use roman alphabet, the Malays were mainly using arabic alphabet which were adapted from the arabian traders but the malay language has some vocabularies that aren't exist in arabic alphabet so the malays added few of their alphabets which became the "Jawi" variant of arabic alphabet which includes the "ch" sound and also the "p" sound.

P is so shy in English. Pneumonia, Pseudo, the P is silent before n and s, then when it meets h, it makes and F sound (Phillip).

nice video! im not sure "pee" and "eff" are the most accurate names for these sounds but it certainly gets the message across so i wont complain.. well explained

very interesting, this is the opposite for indonesian and javanese, where f actually turns into p. For example faham (loaned from arabic) is often pronouced paham. nice vid tho

Hebrew has this feature where bgdcpt (but in modern hebrew just bcp) have two pronounciations, depending on where in the word are they. A soft b is a v sound; a soft c is a ch/h sound (this is not the english ch or h sound, I dunno what it's called); a soft p is an f sound. I believe the rule is, you use the hard sound if it's the beginning of a word or it's after a stop, and the soft sound elsewhere. You can use a small dot to indicate the hard sound, but nobody does it except sometimes with loanwords that break the rules like jeep

The opposite is in Georgian language where there is no F letter so loanwords with F are pronounced with P, same was with old Armenian language later F letter was added into Armenian alphabet. Such F to P transformations are common in some languages of the Caucausus region

kinda unique how a lot of languages shifted some words from p to f. because in Malaysia (it's acual more of malay speakers than malaysians), we tend to do the reverse. instead of pronouncing f, we pronounce it as p. tho, this only happens in dialects and not the entire language itself.

Ayy glad to see my language! IIRC the only two words in Vietnamese that start with p that isn’t paired with h (ph) are pin (your example) and pía, part of “bánh pía”, a durian pastry.

In my bavarian dialect there's no p. It's almost fully merged with b and the aspiration is completely gone.

“P has a pretty frequent habit of turning into F” Arcade game named Puckman:

honestly, the most unpeliavably interesting video I've seen in a while.

I'm a proud 28th subscriber. You bought me with this video

I'm a Hindi native, the aspirated p फ [pʰ] in my language has largely shifted to फ़ [f]

Also phonetically it's easier to pronounce a voiced front consonant than a voiceless one, like with back consonants, but the opposite

So far, you are the first youtuber i have seen to pronounce Maori better than most other channels. I was so glad when i didnt here "Mayory". Thats how bad people are at saying it.

Another thing to note on comparative phonology is Korean has p, but not f, so while the loan word in Mandarin is kafei, in Japanese koohii, in Korean it's something like keopi, or koppi. I don't why it is, but it's interesting to think that the loan words for 'copy' and 'coffee' sound similiar in Korean.

old irish actually has absolutely no Ps anywhere, not even a letter in ogham, and it's also pretty absent in frequency outside of loanwords. meanwhile then you have welsh which uses it everywhere, but only with a k to p sound shift from the rest of celtic that gauls also had for some reason

That is interesting because for most Indonesians it’s easier to say p than f. Most Indonesian words containing f were derived from foreign languages like Arabic. But most of the time we pronounce the f as p.

in my native language, Javanese, the F and P relationship is the other way around. We use a lot of P sound but almost no F sound. When we use word from other language with F (and sometime V), we turn it into P.

Hebrew is somewhere in the middle of this shift, by the way. we have the /p/ phoneme which is realised as [p] when it's at the beginning of words or has emphasis in the root, and as [f] (historically [ɸ]) when not.

Arab here: I must watch. Too interesting. Why do we lack a P in standard Arabic? Well, let me tell you, in Iraq, we call a man who fixes flat tyres a "pentcherchy", from the English word "puncture" plus Turkish suffix "chi". The comparison with Japanese was fascinating. I almost forgot about how Japanese turned p into f into h, which I learned when I was curious about why they wrote p as a h with a half-voiced mark. The connection between h, b, and p in hiragana was strange, until I read about the half-voice mark's history on Wikipedia. This video reminded me of that. Did you know that Arabs used to turn the p in loanwords into f? Parsi, Farsi is an example. Plato, Eflaton is another. Now we turn it into b, but I think f is better than b. For example, fentsherjy instead of bentsherjy as a way to write pentcherchy without using Persian letters chim (gim with three dots) and pa (like ba, with three dots).

Hebrew also changes /p/ to /f/ depending on the position of the letter for P (פ) and the letter preceding it. פ - F פּ - P

Somewhat similar happens with Indo-aryan and Dravidian languages, which somewhat follow Sanskrit grammar( the former ones) or influenced by it( the latter ones). Sanskrit grammar( Astadhyayi) as codified by the Hindu Grammarian Panini in the 8th-6th BCE and Tamil grammar Tollakappiyam( 3rd century BCE), didn't have F, Q, Z sounds originally as the grammar books of other indian languages, which resulted in nearly no native Indian language having it( with some exceptions like Urdu, Punjabi borrowing it artificially from Persian-Arabic and Marathi, Assamese having similar internal developments on their own) . We traditionally have one non-aspirated p and K ( प and ख as in Hindi for instance) and an aspirated p and K( फ and ख़ as in Hindi). Indian speakers can easily make out loanwords from Arabic and Persian which have these aforesaid sounds more specifically and can only pronounce it with effort but out of laziness, we tend to pronounce F, Q, Z as indigenous Ph, Kh, J. We do have P in all our languages though. It is the reason, why Indian scripts didn't have letters for F, Q, Z until recently, many still use the letters corresponding to their native approximate sound value or with slight modifications to them by adding nuqta/Bindu to the already present native letter. For example in Hindi, ph is transcribed in Devanagari as फ, but F is फ़. Kh is ख, Q is ख़ J is ज, Z is ज़ Bonus- the hard guttural g of Arabic( Ghayn) is transcribed as an allophone of native g( ग), that is ग़.

In Japanese, /h/ came from /p/ historically

Brother, if you need any help with the arabic language and it's dialects i can definitely help. There's alot of nuance depending on locale and dialect that could be confusing, especially as "standard" Arabic is still spoken with an accent or even not spoken at all in some places (like the maghreb or egypt)

interesting, i've experienced the opposite with malay and tamil pronunciations, speakers tend to turn f-sounds to p-sounds. i think it's because F isn't native to the languages.

The channel deserves much more attention than it got

I've read somewhere that one reason p often changes to f is because our jaws have become shorter with modern diets. Hunter-gatherers will chew a lot more tough food that causes the jaw to grow larger, and when the jaw is further forward it's easy to make a p sound and somewhat hard to make an f sound but when it's further back the f is easier. So the reason is (maybe) ultimately because of soft food

Also sorta explains how the "F" sound is sometimes represented by "Ph" in english.

Keep it up!

In the Japanese's case, The /f/ sound mentioned in the video is actually /φ/, which is bilabial fricative(sound that is pretty simillar to /f/ but you pronounce it only with your lips, which is sound when you try to pronounce "wh"o).

Vietnamese historically had two p, /p/ and /pʰ/, the former merge with /ɓ/ while the latter became /f/

Sometimes I can't pronounce the p in Spanish (native language) while speaking spontaneously. I don't know why. But I change it to a soft b (it's represented similar to ß with IPA). Even words like "papá" (dad) occasionally I'll pronounce it as "babá" (with the soft b)

Hindi even differentiates between aspirated (प) and unassisted! (फ) . . . as well as the dotted aspirated version (फ़) standing in for the "f" sound in loan words from Persian or Arabic!

In arabic we have a letter for p that we use to distinguish it from b but its not that commonly used it looks like this پ and is a loan from persian which does have p

There is such a character in a dialect of arabic, but not MSA I believe. This is a statement from wikipedia. The third letter of the Kurdo-Arabic alphabet. Its name is پا‎(pa) and it has the sound of English P. It is preceded by ب‎ (bi) and followed by ت‎ (ti)‎

As far as I know, Indo-aryan languages never changed their p's to f. Rather, f only occurs in loanwords for most. However, I have noticed some speakers switch aspirated ph to f. Change in progress

So you're partly saying that, given time, P tends to shift to F and ultimately H in certain (especially ancient) languages. Makes sense. Would be cool if we had a phonetic term for that shift and/or descriptor for languages in which this tends to happen (or not) the most.

2:02 "... p has... frequent habit of turning into f" Explains so much. In South Africa, some languages (eg, Nguni languages) use f (say in the word "funa" = want) while other languages (eg, Tsonga & Venda), not too far from the region of the "f" language will make a pf sound ("funa" becomes "pfuna"). It's sort of this middle ground between a p and an f, but sounds like a very hard f... it's hard for me to make that sound. Interesting

In my language (Mam) there is no F sound. Some people would pronounce loan words containing an F with a P instead, which is the opposite of what you just discussed.

In contrast to that, in Portuguese there's a text with only P words, it's the Pedro Paulo Pereira Pinto, the Portuguese Painter, it's the story of a Portuguese Painter that worked in Brazil and had to Pay a Promise to Priest Paulo to Paint Pots and Plates, then Parted to Portugal to visit his Papa and then went to Paris to Paint Poor People in Ports and Plazas, but before Painted the Peeks of the Pyrenees. And the story goes on... the whole text: “Pedro Paulo Pereira Pinto, pequeno pintor português, pintava portas, paredes, portais. Porém, pediu para parar porque preferiu pintar panfletos. Partindo para Piracicaba, pintou prateleiras para poder progredir. Posteriormente, partiu para Pirapora. Pernoitando, prosseguiu para Paranavaí, pois pretendia praticar pinturas para pessoas pobres. Porém, pouco praticou, porque Padre Paulo pediu para pintar panelas, porém posteriormente pintou pratos para poder pagar promessas. Pálido, porém personalizado, preferiu partir para Portugal para pedir permissão para papai para permanecer praticando pinturas, preferindo, portanto, Paris. Partindo para Paris, passou pelos Pirineus, pois pretendia pintá-los. Pareciam plácidos, porém, pesaroso, percebeu penhascos pedregosos, preferindo pintá-los parcialmente, pois perigosas pedras pareciam precipitar-se principalmente pelo Pico, porque pastores passavam pelas picadas para pedirem pousada, provocando provavelmente pequenas perfurações, pois, pelo passo percorriam, permanentemente, possantes potrancas. Pisando Paris, pediu permissão para pintar palácios pomposos, procurando pontos pitorescos, pois, para pintar pobreza, precisaria percorrer pontos perigosos, pestilentos, perniciosos, preferindo Pedro Paulo precaver-se. Profundas privações passou Pedro Paulo. Pensava poder prosseguir pintando, porém, pretas previsões passavam pelo pensamento, provocando profundos pesares, principalmente por pretender partir prontamente para Portugal. Povo previdente! Pensava Pedro Paulo… Preciso partir para Portugal porque pedem para prestigiar patrícios, pintando principais portos portugueses. Passando pela principal praça parisiense, partindo para Portugal, pediu para pintar pequenos pássaros pretos. Pintou, prostrou perante políticos, populares, pobres, pedintes. - Paris! Paris! - proferiu Pedro Paulo - parto, porém penso pintá-la permanentemente, pois pretendo progredir. Pisando Portugal, Pedro Paulo procurou pelos pais, porém, papai Procópio partira para Província. Pedindo provisões, partiu prontamente, pois precisava pedir permissão para papai Procópio para prosseguir praticando pinturas. Profundamente pálido, perfez percurso percorrido pelo pai. Pedindo permissão, penetrou pelo portão principal. Porém, papai Procópio puxando-o pelo pescoço proferiu: - Pediste permissão para praticar pintura, porém, praticando, pintas pior. Primo Pinduca pintou perfeitamente prima Petúnia. Porque pintas porcarias? - Papai - proferiu Pedro Paulo - pinto porque permitiste, porém, preferindo, poderei procurar profissão própria para poder provar perseverança, pois pretendo permanecer por Portugal. Pegando Pedro Paulo pelo pulso, penetrou pelo patamar, procurando pelos pertences, partiu prontamente, pois pretendia pôr Pedro Paulo para praticar profissão perfeita: pedreiro! Passando pela ponte precisaram pescar para poderem prosseguir peregrinando. Primeiro, pegaram peixes pequenos, porém, passando pouco prazo, pegaram pacus, piaparas, pirarucus. Partindo pela picada próxima, pois pretendiam pernoitar pertinho, para procurar primo Péricles primeiro. Pisando por pedras pontudas, papai Procópio procurou Péricles, primo próximo, pedreiro profissional perfeito. Poucas palavras proferiram, porém prometeu pagar pequena parcela para Péricles profissionalizar Pedro Paulo. Primeiramente Pedro Paulo pegava pedras, porém, Péricles pediu-lhe para pintar prédios, pois precisava pagar pintores práticos. Particularmente Pedro Paulo preferia pintar prédios. Pereceu pintando prédios para Péricles, pois precipitou-se pelas paredes pintadas. Pobre Pedro Paulo pereceu pintando.. Permita-me, pois, pedir perdão pela paciência, pois pretendo parar para pensar… Para parar preciso pensar. Pensei. Portanto, pronto pararei.”

it is true that we "mostly" pronounce "p" just like "f" in Vietnamese but it's only when p with h "ph" is more likely to pronounce like "f" other than that "p" is just like "b" and sometimes it can create some funny situations

Interesting.

Something interesting about p in English: almost all examples of p are from loan word, there are only a words native to English with ps, such as apple and play. This is because English "p" derives from proto indo European "b", which was almost non existent

I had a friend whose native language was Arabic and I saw in him that if he really tried, he could pronounce P but during normal speech he defaulted to B. Turning policy into bolicy, for instance.

2:37 "except after U" Did you mean "except before U"? F comes before U in Fuji. Great explanation, thank you 👍

Japanese /p/ only survived when it was geminated intervocalically. It shifted first to a bilabial fricative (not quite an /f/, more breathy and weak) and then happily shifted into an h, probably via an intermediary voiceless labiovelar fricative.

I had a Filipino friend in grad school & he said that in their language that they did not have and "F" sound & that the name of their country is pronounced starting with a "P" sound instead of an "F" and that country was named by the Spanish. I hate to assume but his native language was probably Tagalog

Modern Khmer is similar to modern Vietnamese lack of initial /p/ in native word. /p/ in Old Khmer and Old Vietnamese are shifted to implosive [ɓ] (not voiced stop) in modern phonology that’s why both languages sound unique because of implosive initials while Mon and other Austroasiatic languages preserve the initial /p/

I've been wondering about this for a long time. I thought Arabic was the oddball in this case.

Nitpick, but the Japanese "f" is, outside of loanwords, an allophone of 'h' and is bilabial (and optional in some accents)

It is interesting that even in Japanese P, F, and H are in the same letter but only with a small sign on the top right to distinguish it

In turkic languages we don't have the sound th and we replace it with a t sound

The ending was golden

Even in Kannada, the initial [p] sound shifted to [h]. Where Malayalam and Tamil have poovu, pogu and paalu, Kannada has hoovu, hallu and haalu.

in the old hijazi dielect there was p (arabic )

meanwhile sundanese struggling to not spell P

Latviešu language does the opposite. We have no f sound instead typically changing it for a p, sometimes for a t. Friedrich becomes Pidriķis.

my native language tagalog has /p/ but no /f/, so being told that people find it easier to pronounce /p/ as /f/ is wild to me when i myself often slip into pronouncing /f/ as /p/ when i'm not careful 😅

You have seen my language yet lol😂😂😂 it’s even worse than this except we have P, F, and words so hard to say 😂😂😂

I found hebrew kinda has the opposite case- where it's rare to found f, and much to found p. Ths most common case f appears in is in the coda, whereas p is never in the coda except for loanwords.

It's weird because in my language (banjarese) we don't have f and instead using p to replace f sound

It's the opposite in Qazaq. F often turns into a P. Like the word for Farsi is "parsı". The word opinion, which in Turkish is "fikir", is instead "pikir"

In javanese pegon writing system that uses arabic letters, the /p/ sound is represented by ف /f/ not ب /b/

Although we don't have a P sound in Arabic (me being a native speaker) for some reason we don't have any issues distinguishing it and the B sound in English apart.

I thought the text was stylized Elian script for a second

I assumed "fu" in japanease was from /h/ being labialized.

Slight correction (from a Vietnamese): In Vietnamese we do pronounce the 'p' (in 'pin') properly in the beginning of the word. In fact, all of my friends along with most of the people i met pronounce it as a 'p' with slight nasalisation.

As an Arabian P is a really easy sound to say so the lack of it does actually affect our ability to speak english

In Hebrew, P alternates with F depending on place in the word. So, Pharaoh is usually Par'o unless there is a preclitic preposition attached to it.

the intonation of this guy's voice makes me feel like i'm watching an infomercial, haha. (i'm not complaining)

1:21 lol at "purezento". in portuguese this would mean that something is "mashed (potato) like"

I don't understand how it's easier to pronounce F instead of P. It's totally different lip configuration and personally for me more work is needed to pronounce F (moving lips and pushing air) than P (just pushing air through closed lips). Some languages (Baltic and Finnic) don't even have F (and H in Baltic) sound except for loanwords.

2:35 i never knew old japanese had front rounded vowels