Speech and sun: New research on climate and how we speak
Aug 2023, phys.org
They evaluated humidity, altitude, temperature, precipitation and density of vegetation across 1,000 globally distributed languages, documented over 300 years. How were these environmental conditions affecting speech over time?"The representation of a diversity of languages were scattered geographically over the widest possible range of global environments," Benedict said. "Ian went to great lengths to specifically build the linguistic data set to provide that geographic diversity. We tried to be intentional about making sure that we had languages in all environmental areas that are implicated in the potential development of these linguistic features."
- greater reliance on vowels in areas with high temperature and humidity,
- more use of ejective consonants within higher altitude areas,
- more complex tone systems in humid areas,
- fewer complex consonants used in areas with more precipitation and a higher temperature.
"If we think about time scales of a century or more of habitual mask use in areas where diseases are common, or you know, air quality is such that it's a standard practice, I would expect to see changes in the way that we communicate with each other," Benedict said."There's some research on bird song which shows that with birds that live in both urban and rural settings, the birds that live in urban areas tend to pitch their songs a little higher to get above the background noise of cars and things like that," Maddieson said. "We know that some species do adapt to these relatively recent changes because the lifespan of a bird is much less than human lifeform."
via University of New Mexico's Department of Linguistics and College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences: Ian Maddieson et al, Demonstrating environmental impacts on the sound structure of languages: challenges and solutions, Frontiers in Psychology (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1200463
Speech study finds classic Georgia accent fading fast
Sep 2023, phys.org
The analysis was carried out with recordings of white individuals native to Georgia, born from the late 19th century to the early 2000s. The researchers focused on the way the recorded speakers pronounced vowels. The team found that older Georgians pronounced the word "prize" as prahz and "face" as fuh-eece, but the youngest speakers use prah-eez and fayce. These are distinctive features of the traditional Southern drawl. (These are called dpithong by the way, when a one-syllable word seems to have two syllables.)"Using transcribed audio, we can use a computer to estimate where you put your tongue in your mouth when you pronounce each vowel, which gives us a quantitative metric of accent.")
via University of Georgia and Georgia Tech: Margaret E. L. Renwick et al, Boomer Peak or Gen X Cliff? From SVS to LBMS in Georgia English, Language Variation and Change (2023). DOI: 10.1017/S095439452300011X
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| AI Art - Cosmic Rainbow - 2023 |
Social vs. language role: Researchers question function of two brain areas
Sep 2023, phys.org
Ouch, just got way more complicated:
"A research team led by Prof. Lin Nan from the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that during sentence processing, the neural activity of two canonical language areas—the left ventral temporoparietal junction (vTPJ) and the lateral anterior temporal lobe (lATL)—is associated with social-semantic working memory rather than language processing per se."These regions were sensitive to sentences only if the sentences conveyed social meaning.These findings are likely to force a major reconsideration of the functional organization of the cortical language network
via Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: Zhang, G. et al, A social-semantic working-memory account for two canonical language areas, Nature Human Behaviour (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01704-8.
Post Script: For smell-related language, it gets even more complicated because social smells are already confusing but now there's two kinds of language also, "regular" and "social".
Why all languages have words for 'this' and 'that'
Oct 2023, phys.org
First, things you didn't know you needed to know: Languages around the world have words for "this" and "that"
But better, "this" means within reach and "that" means outside of reach.
via University of East Anglia: Spatial Communication Systems Across Languages Reflect Universal Action Constraints, Nature Human Behaviour (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01697-4
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