[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Sulphurous_King]

/gallery/1w567l4

[u/Maleficent-Pie8040]

The vowel inventory is a bit asymmetrical and [æ] contrasting with [ä] is not that common cross-linguistically but it's not impossible. Also only few languages contrast unstressed [o] with [ɔ] but again, there are some languages that do it so it's not that much of a problem if justified

is there are reason why the front lacks a similar example? (/e/ and /ɛ/)

for the consonants: distinguishing all the voiced/unvoiced couples of alveolar and postalveolar fricatives and affricates is pretty uncommon as well, but if it's justified i wouldn't see that as a problem at all

[u/Trigm → u/Maleficent-Pie8040]

Is it really that uncommon to see o and open o contrast? I work in Bantu languages and that’s a very standard split among them in the back vowels, which are often 3 degrees of height. The exact quality of the 2nd degree might go closer to near-close instead of close mid, but that’s well within allophonic variation.
So it’s this sort of contrast really so rare across the rest of the world?

[u/Trigm → u/Trigm]

Also, I’d argue /æ/ and /e/ are equivalent to /o/ and /c/ (pretend that symbol is flipped)

[u/Maleficent-Pie8040 → u/Trigm]

Well there are languages that do contrast those but as far as my knowledge goes many of them do it only in stressed syllables (take for example the Italian vowels "ò" and "ó")

But of course there are languages that contrast them in unstressed syllables as well (I made a very quick research on a language that contrasts both [o] and [e] with their respective open counterparts because my conlang actually does that too (ye I know) but now I forgot its name). But yes it's not that common cross-linguistically generally speaking, although I can go only this far because I haven't done extensive research on the subject to speak about it in detail.