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The problem of consonant clusters is a bit overstated IMO. I once saw some English speaker complaining about how difficult it is to pronounce Russian, like take

The problem of consonant clusters is a bit overstated IMO. I once saw some English speaker complaining about how difficult it is to pronounce Russian, like take a phrase "на встрече" — there are 4 consonants at the start of that second word, wtf! — even though that cluster is exactly the same as the one in the English phrase "of strength"; this cluster even undergoes essentially the same simplification/reduction in both languages. But I agree that overly large phonemic inventory is a problem. On the other hand, it seems that languages either have a complex consonant system but a simple vowel system; or a simple consonant system but a complex vowel system; I haven't yet seen a language where both systems are simple (Japanese vowels have tonality, so it's not a simple system IMHO), probably because the words in such a language would have to be quite long.

int_19h 2y ago
Learned phonotactics matters, though, and many languages distinguish between what's allowed on word or morpheme boundaries vs what's allowed within a single syllable - so even if phonemically it's the same cluster, it can still be difficult to learn to pronounce it correctly in the second case. There are quite a few languages where both vowel and consonant systems are simple - just look at Polynesian languages such as Māori. The latter's vowel system is 5-vowel, and "long vowels" are phonemically vowel sequences that span moras. But, yes, it does mean that you end up with long words such as "whakararurarutia". That said, it's a rather extreme case, and one can still construct fairly simple but rich consonant systems in practice, because it's basically combinatorics - adding just one more bit of information doubles the domain space! So e.g. if you start with a strict CV consonant system and allow C(l/r)V, that's almost 4x as many contrasting syllables. Make it C(l/r/w/y)V(C) like in Globasa, and even with considerable restrictions on clustering stops etc this is enough for most words to be 3 syllables or less, and for most function words to be 1 syllable.

int_19h 2y ago

Learned phonotactics matters, though, and many languages distinguish between what's allowed on word or morpheme boundaries vs what's allowed within a single syllable - so even if phonemically it's the same cluster, it can still be difficult to learn to pronounce it correctly in the second case. There are quite a few languages where both vowel and consonant systems are simple - just look at Polynesian languages such as Māori. The latter's vowel system is 5-vowel, and "long vowels" are phonemically vowel sequences that span moras. But, yes, it does mean that you end up with long words such as "whakararurarutia". That said, it's a rather extreme case, and one can still construct fairly simple but rich consonant systems in practice, because it's basically combinatorics - adding just one more bit of information doubles the domain space! So e.g. if you start with a strict CV consonant system and allow C(l/r)V, that's almost 4x as many contrasting syllables. Make it C(l/r/w/y)V(C) like in Globasa, and even with considerable restrictions on clustering stops etc this is enough for most words to be 3 syllables or less, and for most function words to be 1 syllable.