<P> A morphophoneme is a theoretical unit at a deeper level of abstraction than traditional phonemes, and is taken to be a unit from which morphemes are built up . A morphophoneme within a morpheme can be expressed in different ways in different allomorphs of that morpheme (according to morphophonological rules). For example, the English plural morpheme - s appearing in words such as cats and dogs can be considered to consist of a single morphophoneme, which might be written (for example) / / z / / or z, and which is pronounced as (s) after most voiceless consonants (as in cats) and (z) in most other cases (as in dogs). </P> <P> A given language will use only a small subset of the many possible sounds that the human speech organs can produce, and, because of allophony, the number of distinct phonemes will generally be smaller than the number of identifiably different sounds . Different languages vary considerably in the number of phonemes they have in their systems (although apparent variation may sometimes result from the different approaches taken by the linguists doing the analysis). The total phonemic inventory in languages varies from as few as 11 in Rotokas and Pirahã to as many as 141 in! Xũ . </P> <P> The number of phonemically distinct vowels can be as low as two, as in Ubykh and Arrernte . At the other extreme, the Bantu language Ngwe has 14 vowel qualities, 12 of which may occur long or short, making 26 oral vowels, plus 6 nasalized vowels, long and short, making a total of 38 vowels; while! Xóõ achieves 31 pure vowels, not counting its additional variation by vowel length, by varying the phonation . As regards consonant phonemes, Puinave and the Papuan language Tauade each have just seven, and Rotokas has only six .! Xóõ, on the other hand, has somewhere around 77, and Ubykh 81 . The English language uses a rather large set of 13 to 21 vowel phonemes, including diphthongs, although its 22 to 26 consonants are close to average . </P> <P> Some languages, such as French, have no phonemic tone or stress, while Cantonese and several of the Kam--Sui languages have nine tones, and one of the Kru languages, Wobe, has been claimed to have 14, though this is disputed . </P>

How many sounds make up the english language