Does Geography Influence How a Language Sounds?

Does Geography Influence How a Language Sounds?

A linguist finds a correlation between "ejective consonants" and high altitude.

Ker Than
National Geographic
Published June 14, 2013

Languages spoken at high altitudes are more likely to contain a certain kind of sound made using short bursts of air, according to a new study.

The study, published online June 12 in the journal PLoS ONE, is the first to show that geography can influence how a language sounds.

"I had this hypothesis that (certain sounds) might be more common at high altitudes," said study author Caleb Everett, an anthropological linguist at the University of Miami.

"I was not at all convinced that I would find the evidence for it, but when I actually looked at the data, the distribution was pretty overwhelming."

Using an online database that categorizes languages based on their features, Everett analyzed the locations of about 600 of the world's 7,000 or so languages.

More:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130614-high-altitude-ejective-language-linguistics/