Research indicates that the drier air of cold regions irritates vocal cords, which leads the population to use less vowels. The opposite happens in the warmer regions, where air absorbs high frequency sounds, forcing speakers to use more vowels and make more noise.
A linguistic published at PNAS Nexus in 2023 revealed a link between the climate and the sound of tongues. Analyzing the vocabulary of more than 5000 languages, the researchers found that warmer climates tend to favor a more “sound” speech, That is, tongues richer in vowels and fluent sounds. The colder regions, on the other hand, have tongues with sharper and more consonant syllables.
The study, led by Dr. Søren Wichmann of the University of Kiel, used the ASJP (Automated Similarity Judgment Program) data set to calculate a “average sound indexFor each language. When mapped in conjunction with global climate data, a striking trend emerged: sound was greater in developed languages near Ecuador, particularly in Oceania and Africa, and lower in colder regions such as Siberia and parts of North America.
Scientists suggest that physical and physiological factors underlie this pattern. Cold air, which is dry, can irritate vocal cords, making it difficult to produce noisier sounds such as vowels. Hot air, on the other hand, absorbs high frequency sounds, potentially silenced consonants, which can encourage the use of more serious and resonant sounds, reports the.
“In general, the languages in the warmer regions are higher than those in the colder regions, ”said Wichmann.
However, investigators are cautious by pointing out that the connection is not uniform. Although the correlation is clear in large geographical areas and periods of time, it becomes less consistent when analyzing individual linguistic families. For example, hot climate languages in parts of Southeast Asia and Central America still presented lower sound scores.
In addition, some of the data limitations, such as the use of small word samples or the non -weighting of words by the frequency of use, may affect the clarity of the results. Still, the general trend is strong enough to suggest a long -term interaction between the tongue and the environment.
The findings are aligned with the Hypothesis of acoustic adaptationwhich proposes that vocalizations, both in animals and humans, evolve to better adapt to their acoustic environment. As global temperatures increase, researchers speculate, language itself can continue to change, subtly shaped by the air through which we speak.
