Why are there no words in the English language with 3 of the same vowels or consonants together (like “aaa” or “sss”)?

Question

Why are there no words in the English language with 3 of the same vowels or consonants together (like “aaa” or “sss”)?

In: 5

Answer 1

Languages usually only ever count to two. There’s some *very unusual* cases of languages with three vowel lengths, but the vast majority of languages either have a box for ‘short vowel’ and a box for ‘long vowel’ or have no length distinction at all. The same is true of consonants, except I’ve never heard of a language with a three-way consonant length distinction.

English actually has no length distinction at all in either vowels or consonants, though (except in Australia). Written double vowel letters are a way to get at more vowel qualities, and written double consonant letters are mostly just treated as the same as single letters (or sometimes <s> is /z/ while <ss> is /s/).

Answer 2

Languages usually only ever count to two. There’s some *very unusual* cases of languages with three vowel lengths, but the vast majority of languages either have a box for ‘short vowel’ and a box for ‘long vowel’ or have no length distinction at all. The same is true of consonants, except I’ve never heard of a language with a three-way consonant length distinction.

English actually has no length distinction at all in either vowels or consonants, though (except in Australia). Written double vowel letters are a way to get at more vowel qualities, and written double consonant letters are mostly just treated as the same as single letters (or sometimes <s> is /z/ while <ss> is /s/).