Syllable-less languages

The notion of syllable is challenged by languages that allow long strings of consonants without any intervening vowel or sonorant. Languages of the Northwest coast of North America, including Salishan and Wakashan languages, are famous for this. For instance, these Nuxálk (Bella Coola) words contain only obstruents:

[ɬχʷtɬʦxʷ] 'you spat on me'
[ʦ’ktskʷʦʼ] 'he arrived'
[xɬpʼχʷɬtɬpɬɬs] 'he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant' (Bagemihl 1991:589, 593, 627)
[sxs] 'seal blubber'

In Bagemihl's survey of previous analyses, he finds that the word [ʦ’ktskʷʦ’] would have been parsed into 0, 2, 3, 5, or 6 syllables depending which analysis is used. One analysis would consider all vowel and consonants segments as syllable nuclei, another would consider only a small subset as nuclei candidates, and another would simply deny the existence of syllables completely.

This type of phenomenon has also been reported in Berber languages (such as Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber) and Mon-Khmer languages (such as Semai, Temiar, Kammu). Even in English there are a few utterances that have no vowels; for example, shh (meaning "be quiet") and psst (a sound used to attract attention).

Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber:

[tftktst tfktstt] 'you sprained it and then gave it'
[rkkm] 'rot' (imperf.) (Dell & Elmedlaoui 1985, 1988)

Semai:

[kckmrʔɛːc] 'short, fat arms' (Sloan 1988)