The following pages contain charts showing the phoneme inventory of each of the carefully selected sample of 317 languages which comprise the UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database (UPSID). It also includes an index of each segment type which occurs in the database. This index is arranged according to the phonetic classification of the segments, and includes the number of languages with each given segment type and a list of the languages in which it occurs.

The phoneme charts and segment index make available to other users the basic data of UPSID. With these tools, much of the information in the database can be manipulated without the use of a computer. For example, the question “Does /g/ only occur in languages with /k/?” can be answered for the UPSID sample by using the index to find the list of languages with /g/ and then turning to each relevant chart to see if /k/ occurs, or cross-checking with the list of languages with /k/ in the index. More complex co-occurrences of segments can be examined more easily by a study of the charts.

Publishing the data in this form serves another purpose, that of making the interpretations of the phoneme inventories adopted in UPSID open to independent evaluation. Scholars may reach their own conclusions on the appropriateness of the inventory as it is represented in UPSID.