2016-09-14

Human Languages Use Similar Sounds for Common Words

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Amazing . . . can’t wait for further research to confirm or refute . . .

Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages

(or doi: 10.1073/pnas.1605782113)

Or you can read a short version on the news site where I first learned about it:

Linguistic study proves more than 6,000 languages use similar sounds for common words

Or under a title I thought most apt:

A nose by any other name would sound the same, study finds

Here’s a list of the sounds taken from the original PNAS article (symbols are described here):

Nor can I resist the nice map from the same article:

Trying to think through the significance(s) should it be confirmed. . . . .

First, a universal grammar. . . . now this?

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5 thoughts on “Human Languages Use Similar Sounds for Common Words”

Gavin says:

2016-09-15 05:17:30 GMT+0000 at 05:17

This kind of analysis has often been dismissed by linguists as something akin to “paralellomania”; I daresay it will again here.

Reply
1. Gavin says:
  
  2016-09-15 07:29:21 GMT+0000 at 07:29
  
  Not to say it’s unreasonable – the Nostratic hypothesis (which I like) might account for it; along with various onomatopoetic ideas; but we’re at a most abstract level here.
  
  Reply
  1. Neil Godfrey says:
    
    2016-09-15 10:46:30 GMT+0000 at 10:46
    
    I’d love to follow it up in more depth if I had no other interests taking up my energies. I’m waiting to see what other related and follow-up research has to say, and of course analyses of the methods used in this study.
    
    Reply
Aleph says:

2016-09-29 23:43:17 GMT+0000 at 23:43

Hey Neil, huge fan of the blog here! Please keep up the great work.

I was just wondering if there was a recent study supporting Universal Grammar you had in mind, or if the last line of your entry was meant as a more general reference to the theories of Chomsky and others.

Thanks again!

Reply
1. Neil Godfrey says:
  
  2016-09-30 05:22:03 GMT+0000 at 05:22
  
  Very general. I have not had opportunities to delve into the debates myself. I rely entirely upon what I hear among linguists themselves – or at least that very small subsection of the community I have contacted and the few I have read about.
  
  Reply

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Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages

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