TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages
T2 - Connecting the physiological and geographic dots
AU - Everett, Caleb
AU - Blasi, Damián E.
AU - Roberts, Seán G.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Copyright:
Copyright 2015 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/2/3
Y1 - 2015/2/3
N2 - We summarize a number of findings in laryngology demonstrating that perturbations of phonation, including increased jitter and shimmer, are associated with desiccated ambient air. We predict that, given the relative imprecision of vocal fold vibration in desiccated versus humid contexts, arid and cold ecologies should be less amenable, when contrasted to warm and humid ecologies, to the development of languages with phonemic tone, especially complex tone. This prediction is supported by data fromtwo large independently coded databases representing 3,700+ languages. Languages with complex tonality have generally not developed in very cold or otherwise desiccated climates, in accordance with the physiologically based predictions. The predicted global geographic-linguistic association is shown to operate within continents, within major language families, and across language isolates. Our results offer evidence that human sound systems are influenced by environmental factors.
AB - We summarize a number of findings in laryngology demonstrating that perturbations of phonation, including increased jitter and shimmer, are associated with desiccated ambient air. We predict that, given the relative imprecision of vocal fold vibration in desiccated versus humid contexts, arid and cold ecologies should be less amenable, when contrasted to warm and humid ecologies, to the development of languages with phonemic tone, especially complex tone. This prediction is supported by data fromtwo large independently coded databases representing 3,700+ languages. Languages with complex tonality have generally not developed in very cold or otherwise desiccated climates, in accordance with the physiologically based predictions. The predicted global geographic-linguistic association is shown to operate within continents, within major language families, and across language isolates. Our results offer evidence that human sound systems are influenced by environmental factors.
KW - Adaptation
KW - Climate
KW - Language
KW - Tone
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1417413112
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1417413112
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84922551869
VL - 112
SP - 1322
EP - 1327
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
SN - 0027-8424
IS - 5
ER -