A few weeks ago someone said that because the alphabet of Te Reo Māori didn’t use the letter “f” then it didn’t have “an f sound” https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤔" title="Denkendes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Denkendes Gesicht">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😑" title="Ausdrucksloses Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Ausdrucksloses Gesicht">

Unfortunately, some people seem be under the misunderstanding that a particular letter is always & inherently fixed to a particular sound...

First, what is “an f sound”? Well, for various reasons, I presume they meant a “voiceless labiodental fricative”https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤨" title="Gesicht mit hochgezogener Augenbraue" aria-label="Emoji: Gesicht mit hochgezogener Augenbraue"> This just means that you put your bottom lip up to your top teeth & breath out air, try it! https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👄" title="Mund" aria-label="Emoji: Mund">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🦷" title="Tooth" aria-label="Emoji: Tooth">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="💨" title="Staubwolke" aria-label="Emoji: Staubwolke"> https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😜" title="Winking face with tongue" aria-label="Emoji: Winking face with tongue"> The first (obvious) problem is that...

Even their beloved English language uses other letters to represent that “f sound”. I mean, we’ve seen these examples so much https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤦🏼‍♀️" title="Frau schlägt sich die Hand vors Gesicht (mittelheller Hautton)" aria-label="Emoji: Frau schlägt sich die Hand vors Gesicht (mittelheller Hautton)"> I give you:

“Gh” doing the “f sound” in - Laugh, rough https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😂" title="Gesicht mit Freudentränen" aria-label="Emoji: Gesicht mit Freudentränen">
“Ph” doing the “f sound” in - Phone, sapphire https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="☎️" title="Telefon" aria-label="Emoji: Telefon">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="💎" title="Edelstein" aria-label="Emoji: Edelstein">
“Lf” doing the “f sound” in - Half https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⚖️" title="Waage" aria-label="Emoji: Waage">
...

And as ever English isn’t consistent.

The letter “f” in the word “of”, is a definite “v sound” (also known as voiced labiodental fricative https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤗" title="Umarmendes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Umarmendes Gesicht">)...

It’s just reallyyyy Anglo-centric & provincial to think that the “f sound” is innately fixed to the letter “f” ‘cause...

You’re just basing your opinion on how one language, i.e. English,(sometimes!) does it. It turns out that the “f sound” is shown by:

φ in Greek (as in φύοη)https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇬🇷" title="Flagge von Griechenland" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge von Griechenland">
פ ף in Hebrewhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇮🇱" title="Flagge von Israel" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge von Israel">
Ф in Chechen (as in фақс)https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🐺" title="Wolfsgesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Wolfsgesicht">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="💚" title="Grünes Herz" aria-label="Emoji: Grünes Herz">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="❤️" title="Rotes Herz" aria-label="Emoji: Rotes Herz">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤍" title="Weißes Herz" aria-label="Emoji: Weißes Herz">
Ֆ in Armenianhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇦🇲" title="Flagge von Armenien" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge von Armenien">
ف in Arabichttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇸🇩" title="Flagge des Sudan" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge des Sudan">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇱🇧" title="Flagge von Libanon" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge von Libanon">
v in Malay (as in vandalisme)https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇮🇩" title="Flagge von Indonesien" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge von Indonesien">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇧🇳" title="Flagge von Brunei" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge von Brunei">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🇲🇾" title="Flagge von Malaysia" aria-label="Emoji: Flagge von Malaysia">...

And of course, there are many other ways to represent the “f sound” in writing, especially when you look at different writing systems https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😊" title="Lächelndes Gesicht mit lächelnden Augen" aria-label="Emoji: Lächelndes Gesicht mit lächelnden Augen"> The human mouth, is capable of making all kinds of sounds & languages all over the world assign different characters to different soundshttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🗣" title="Silhouette eines sprechenden Kopfes" aria-label="Emoji: Silhouette eines sprechenden Kopfes">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="📝" title="Memo" aria-label="Emoji: Memo">...

There’s a lot more to say about the letter “wh” in Māori & the sound(s) attached to it (it’s not always a voiceless labiodental-dental fricative for one thing https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤗" title="Umarmendes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Umarmendes Gesicht">) but that’s a thread for another day, I’ve a few more coming soon https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤓" title="Nerd-Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Nerd-Gesicht">

Happy Saturday https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="☺️" title="Lächelndes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Lächelndes Gesicht">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🙋🏼‍♀️" title="Happy woman raising one hand (mittelheller Hautton)" aria-label="Emoji: Happy woman raising one hand (mittelheller Hautton)">...

(Apols for any possible mistakes in the non-Latin character examples)

That person also had an issue with how the PM of Aotearoa pronounces certain words, in case you missed it, I already have a thread about that https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🤗" title="Umarmendes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Umarmendes Gesicht"> https://twitter.com/aoinifh/status/1216514569805467648">https://twitter.com/aoinifh/s...