Many Slavic languages may manifest almost as formidable numbers of consecutive consonants, such as in the Czech tongue twister Strč prst skrz krk (pronounced [str̩tʃ pr̩st skr̩s kr̩k] ⓘ), meaning 'stick a finger through the neck', the Slovak words štvrť /ʃtvr̩c/ ("quarter"), and žblnknutie /ʒbl̩ŋknucɪɛ̯/ ("clunk"; "flop"), and the Slovene word skrbstvo /skrbstʋo/ ("welfare").
However, the liquid consonants /r/ and /l/ can form syllable nuclei in West and South Slavic languages and behave phonologically as vowels in this case.
In Dutch, clusters of six or even seven consonants are possible (e.g. angstschreeuw ("a scream of fear"), slechtstschrijvend ("writing the worst") and zachtstschrijdend ("treading the most softly")).
There has been a trend to reduce and simplify consonant clusters in the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, such as Chinese and Vietnamese.
The word 江, read /tɕiɑŋ˥/ in Mandarin and /kɔːŋ˥⁻˥˧/in Cantonese, is reconstructed as *klong or *krung in Old Chinese by Sinologists like Zhengzhang Shangfang, William H. Baxter, and Laurent Sagart.
Additionally, initial clusters such as "tk" and "sn" were analysed in recent reconstructions of Old Chinese, and some were developed as palatalised sibilants.
For example, ⟨glow⟩ comes from Proto-Germanic *glo-, which in turn comes from Proto-Indo-European *gʰel-ó, where *gʰel- is a root meaning 'to shine, to be bright' and is also present in ⟨glee⟩, ⟨gleam⟩, and ⟨glade⟩.
The English words sphere /ˈsfɪər/ and sphinx /ˈsfɪŋks/, Greek loanwords, break the rule that two fricatives may not appear adjacently word-initially.
Some English words, including thrash, three, throat, and throw, start with the voiceless dental fricative /θ/, the liquid /r/, or the /r/ cluster (/θ/+/r/).
[10][11][12][13] Bayley has added that social factors such as age, gender, and geographical locations of speakers can determine clusters when they are loaned crosslinguistically.
[14] In English, the longest possible initial cluster is three consonants, as in split /ˈsplɪt/, strudel /ˈstruːdəl/, strengths /ˈstrɛŋkθs/, and "squirrel" /ˈskwɪrəl/, all beginning with /s/ or /ʃ/, containing /p/, /t/, or /k/, and ending with /l/, /r/, or /w/[a]; the longest possible final cluster is five consonants, as in angsts (/ˈæŋksts/),[citation needed] though this is rare (perhaps owing to being derived from a recent German loanword[15]).
However, the /k/ in angsts may also be considered epenthetic; for many speakers, nasal-sibilant sequences in the coda require insertion of a voiceless stop homorganic to the nasal.
Final clusters of four consonants, as in angsts in other dialects (/ˈæŋsts/), twelfths /ˈtwɛlfθs/, sixths /ˈsɪksθs/, bursts /ˈbɜːrsts/ (in rhotic accents) and glimpsed /ˈɡlɪmpst/, are more common.
Conversely, the letter ⟨x⟩ can produce the consonant clusters /ks/ (annex), /gz/ (exist), /kʃ/ (sexual), or /gʒ/ (some pronunciations of "luxury").
The Tsou language of Taiwan has initial clusters such as /tf/, which doesn't violate the SSP, but nonetheless is unusual in having the labio-dental /f/ in the second position.
Clusters are more likely to begin with a liquid, approximant, or nasal and end with a fricative, affricate, or stop, such as in English "world" /wə(ɹ)ld/.