RP phonemes in the Advanced Learner's Dictionary

(1974 electronic edition with Roger Mitton's 1992 additions)

Total number of words in the dictionary: 70,646
Total number of symbols in the dictionary pronunciation field: 492,745

Figures for running words in transcribed spoken text from D.B.Fry, 1947, cited in Crystal, 1995.

Vowels	Keyword	Total	Words	in dictionary	Freq. rank	in spoken text	Freq. rank
i	bead	6721	6525	1.36%	9	1.65%	7
ɪ	bid	51830	37729	10.52%	1	8.33%	2
e	bed	11312	10940	2.30%	4	2.97%	3
�	bad	11603	11149	2.35%	3	1.45%	9
ɑ	bard	4215	4141	0.86%	14	0.79%	14
ɒ	pot	7960	7747	1.62%	6	1.37%	10
ɔ	port	4730	4627	0.96%	12	1.24%	11
ʊ	put	1977	1959	0.40%	17	0.86%	13
u	boot	4794	4743	0.97%	11	1.13%	12
ʌ	bud	7124	6917	1.45%	8	1.75%	5
ɜ	bird	3095	3083	0.63%	15	0.52%	16
ə	another	31009	26813	6.29%	2	10.74%	1
eɪ	bait	10234	10029	2.08%	5	1.71%	6
aɪ	bite	7441	7236	1.51%	7	1.83%	4
oɪ	boy	788	784	0.16%	20	0.14%	19
aʊ	cow	2179	2135	0.44%	16	0.61%	15
əʊ	no	6685	6416	1.36%	10	1.51%	8
ɪə	beer	4174	4034	0.85%	13	0.21%	18
eə	bear	965	962	0.20%	19	0.34%	17
ʊə	poor	1053	1053	0.21%	18	0.06%	20
Consonants
p	pop	15553	14569	3.16%	9	1.78%	15
b	bib	10907	10420	2.21%	11	1.97%	13
t	teat	34260	29441	6.95%	1	6.42%	2
d	died	21275	19125	4.32%	7	5.14%	3
k	cake	22453	20308	4.56%	6	3.09%	9
g	go	6239	6079	1.27%	14	1.05%	18
ʧ	chin	2672	2639	0.54%	21	0.41%	22
ʤ	judge	3869	3802	0.79%	18	0.60%	21
f	fine	8839	8606	1.79%	13	1.79%	14
v	vine	6007	5859	1.22%	16	2.00%	12
Ɵ	think	1602	1591	0.33%	22	0.37%	23
�	then	596	593	0.12%	23	3.56%	6
s	see	33922	28548	6.88%	2	4.81%	4
z	zoo	19972	18808	4.05%	8	2.46%	11
ʃ	shy	6117	6039	1.24%	15	0.96%	19
ʒ	treasure	334	334	0.07%	24	0.10%	24
m	my	14823	13988	3.01%	10	3.22%	8
n	near	31934	27020	6.48%	3	7.58%	1
ŋ	sing	9181	8958	1.86%	12	1.15%	17
l	low	27373	25435	5.56%	4	3.66%	5
r	raw	23069	21434	4.68%	5	3.51%	7
w	west	4600	4523	0.93%	17	2.81%	10
j	year	3560	3518	0.72%	20	0.88%	20
h	high	3699	3625	0.75%	19	1.46%	16

Notes:

Column 1 contains vowel or consonant phonetic characters. Column 2 shows an illustrative keyword.
Column 3 shows the total number of occurrences of the sound in the dictionary and column 4 the number of words in which it occurred. (The difference between these two corresponds to the number of words in which the sound occurs more than once.)
Column 5 is column 3 as a percentage of 492,745, the total number of symbols in the pronunciation field in the dictionary. Column 6 shows the frequency rank of the sound, separately calculated for vowels and consonants. Columns 7 and 8 are frequency as percentage and rank for transcribed running speech.
Average number of vowel symbols per dictionary word: 2.55 or 36.3%
Average number of consonant symbols per dictionary word: 4.43 or 63.7%
Balance of vowels and consonants in connected speech sample: 39.2% : 60.8%.
Notice the difference in frequencies of consonants between the dictionary list and the speech text, partly accounted for by the high frequency of the function words with /�/ such as the and that. The data for transcribed running speech are affected by the transcription used. The research was done a long time ago (1947) so it may be that a careful style of speech was recorded and a broad transcription used. Some evidence for this is the relatively high ranking for /h/, suggesting that the words he, his, her, have, has and had have always been transcribed with initial /h/. I have not seen the original research so cannot be sure.

References:

Crystal, David (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press.
Fry, D.B. (1947). "The frequency of occurrence of speech sounds in Southern English." Archives N�erlandaises de Phon�tique Experimentales, 20.

Credit: John Higgins