The hidden sound patterns that could overturn

years of linguistic theory

David Shariatmadari
In a surprising new study, researchers have uncovered powerful associations between sounds and meanings
across thousands of unrelated languages

Breasts are linked to m and this might be due to the mouth conguration of suckling babies or to the sounds babies produce.
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Friday 16 September 2016 10.00BST

S cientists have just published a startling analysis of commonly used words in 4298 languages
(62% of all those spoken). They wanted to nd out if there were associations between
particular sounds and meanings that couldnt be put down to the fact that the languages were
related, are used close to one another, or to chance.

As it turned out, they detected strong correlations between sounds and meanings that were
independent of genetic relationship, borrowing or coincidence. For example, words for small
often contained high front vowels (roughly, ee as in peak or see); words for round and
red were linked to r sounds; words for star to z and words for full to bilabial
consonants (p and b). Associations were found for body parts: tongue was correlated with
l and nose with n. Remember, these similarities were found in languages as distant from
one another as English and Tagalog, Yoruba and Mandarin.

Why does this matter? One of the rst things a student of linguistics learns is that the relationship
between the signier (the sound of a word) and the signied (the concept it represents) is
arbitrary. We use the word tree to signify a plant with a trunk and leaves, but theres nothing
particularly tree-like about the combination t-r-e-e. If a law was passed saying we had to call it
frave instead, that word would gradually become normal, just like ki is for Japanese speakers
and umthi for Xhosa.

This is part of what gives human language its immense productive power. New words can be
coined and they dont have to be tied in any way to the concept they represent. Just the
convention linking that sound and the concept in peoples minds is enough.

There are some exceptions: onomatopoeic words like smash or judder have physical qualities
which do slightly resemble the things they describe. But the idea that this sound symbolism
extends much further than a few childish curiosities has long been dismissed by most linguists.

Damian Blasi and his colleagues focussed on 30 fundamental concepts none of which represent
loud or distinctive noises, often fertile ground for onomatopoeia. These came from the famous
Swadesh list of 100 basic words, and included bite, drink, ear, leaf, we, tooth,
skin, one and stone. Incredibly, as well as positive links, they uncovered sets of sounds
these words seem to avoid ones that appear much less often than you would expect if it were
down to chance. Water (strangely enough for English speakers) seems to avoid the t sound.
Words for tooth avoid b and m. The a h and r sounds are found less commonly in
words for breasts.

The study builds on earlier research which hinted at non-arbitrary relationships between sound
and meaning. For example, people have been able to successfully pair up words that have
opposite meanings in languages they dont know. One study showed that English speakers could
make better-than-chance guesses at the concreteness of unfamiliar foreign words thats to say,
whether a word might mean something like car versus something like happiness.
Intimations, if you like, of a universal language of sound.

That leaves us with the question: why? In the 19th century, the founder of modern linguistics,
Ferdinand de Saussure, made arbitrariness the central plank of his theory of language. His
insights are still pretty powerful. But as the science developed, it seemed to become more and
more divorced from the world in which language is used, and the bodies and minds that use it.
This trend culminated with ideas about a genetically encoded language module in the brain,
possessed of a language-specic set of rules that determine not just the structure of English, but
of Swedish, Burmese, Kazakh, Czech, you name it.

Those schools of thought are identied with theorists such as Stephen Pinker and Noam
Chomsky. Others believe that language isnt necessarily hived o, that its structures are
determined by an interplay of forces that include general principles of cognition, logical
relationships (like cause and eect) and shared environment.
Blasi et al, for their part, say that the explanation must lie in factors common to our species,
which leaves things fairly open. They point out the association of nose with nasal sounds and
tongue with l sounds saying that a link between body parts and the sounds they make has
been noted before. Breasts are associated with m and this might be due to the mouth
conguration of suckling babies or to the sounds babies produce.

So far, so not particularly mysterious although the embedding into actual language of these
properties is extraordinary if you think about it. But what about leaf, star, round, red
water we and you? There are clearly some missing pieces of the jigsaw. Synesthesia in both
the narrow and broad sense is one possible answer the ability that humans have for associating
stimuli across dierent modalities as the authors put it.

In other words, translating the feel of a leaf or a stone or a star into sound. Thats pretty much
what poets do. And, as it turns out, there could be more poetry woven into language than we ever
realised.

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