I was thinking about the loss of hearing that can accompany aging, and how this loss can affect the ability to communicate verbally.
Since the ability to distinguish consonants tend to diminish before the ability to distinguish vowels, I was wondering if there are any languages that might be considered "senior friendly." For example, would Hawaiian be a fortuitous language for a community of seniors? If I understand what I've just read about the language, a person listening does not have to distinguish, for example, between "p" and "b" as well as some other consonant pairs, which get a little tricky when the pitches ringing in one's ears start becoming lower and mask more incoming sound.
From the little I know, Hawaiian is the most famous for emphasizing vowels. I am posting here because I assume people at this site will be much better acquainted with world languages and can point out if there are other vowel-oriented languages, perhaps one's related to Hawaiian or from which Hawaiian evolved.
Another side to this question, has anyone tried developing a "senior friendly" and easy-to-learn variant of English that reduces the language's dependence on high-frequency phonemes? Or is that a nutty idea?