Post by cjm on Sept 16, 2016 8:15:37 GMT
“R” Is For Red: Common Words Share Similar Sounds in Many Languages
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Together with his colleagues, Damián Blasi of the University of Zurich analyzed lists of words from 4,298 different languages. In doing so, they discovered that unrelated languages often use the same sounds to refer to the same meaning. For example, the consonant r is often used in words for red—think of French rouge, Spanish rojo, and German rot, but also Turkish kırmızı, Hungarian piros, and Maori kura.
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The study raises some big-picture questions. Why, for example, should it be the case that culturally and geographically diverse groups of humans link the same sounds with the same meanings? Blasi and colleagues used statistical analyses to rule out the possibility that people happened to borrow words like red from neighboring languages, or that such words descended from the same ancient proto-language. So the answer to this question remains elusive. Although it’s easy to imagine that the n-sound in nose reflects nasality, this is a guess and no such relationship can explain other associations.
Another tough question concerns the relatively small number of associations. Why do a handful of words like red, small and leaf form non-arbitrary links to their speech sounds, while thousands of other words—such as soup and dog—do not? Simon Kirby, professor at the Center for Language Evolution at the University of Edinburgh, thinks this may be the heart of the matter. “The puzzle is really why this is such a marginal phenomenon,” says Kirby. “Why does it take a huge study like this to demonstrate that there is some non-arbitrariness in the lexicon? Blasi and colleagues have shown that non-arbitrary associations are possible—the deeper puzzle about language is why it is nevertheless largely arbitrary.”
...
Together with his colleagues, Damián Blasi of the University of Zurich analyzed lists of words from 4,298 different languages. In doing so, they discovered that unrelated languages often use the same sounds to refer to the same meaning. For example, the consonant r is often used in words for red—think of French rouge, Spanish rojo, and German rot, but also Turkish kırmızı, Hungarian piros, and Maori kura.
...
The study raises some big-picture questions. Why, for example, should it be the case that culturally and geographically diverse groups of humans link the same sounds with the same meanings? Blasi and colleagues used statistical analyses to rule out the possibility that people happened to borrow words like red from neighboring languages, or that such words descended from the same ancient proto-language. So the answer to this question remains elusive. Although it’s easy to imagine that the n-sound in nose reflects nasality, this is a guess and no such relationship can explain other associations.
Another tough question concerns the relatively small number of associations. Why do a handful of words like red, small and leaf form non-arbitrary links to their speech sounds, while thousands of other words—such as soup and dog—do not? Simon Kirby, professor at the Center for Language Evolution at the University of Edinburgh, thinks this may be the heart of the matter. “The puzzle is really why this is such a marginal phenomenon,” says Kirby. “Why does it take a huge study like this to demonstrate that there is some non-arbitrariness in the lexicon? Blasi and colleagues have shown that non-arbitrary associations are possible—the deeper puzzle about language is why it is nevertheless largely arbitrary.”