Dresden. A recent interdisciplinary and international research team examined expressions of pain, joy, and disgust across 131 languages. Typical utterances for pain included "Ah," "au," "autsch," and "ai," predominantly using the open vowel "a." However, responses to joy and disgust varied among cultures.
Published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, co-author Katarzyna Pisanski stated that this study may provide insights into the origins of language. She posed the question, "Why did humans start to speak while other primates did not?" While all monkeys can laugh and produce playful sounds, humans are the only species to have developed spoken language.
Linguist Johann-Mattis List from the University of Passau noted that many languages have similar terms for "mother," such as "Mama," "Ma," "Amma," and for "father," such as "Papa" or "Baba." This phenomenon relates to the ease with which infants can produce the sounds "m" and "a" along with certain plosive sounds.
List further observed that all known languages have a word for "red," which is crucial for identifying fruits. However, he cautioned that there are always exceptions, as some languages may not conform to these universals.
Fabian Bross, a linguist from the University of Stuttgart, provided an additional example: while "m" is one of the first sounds produced by babies, it does not appear in all languages. "Ninety-seven percent of languages feature an 'm,'" he stated, citing the Rotokas language of Papua New Guinea, which has only 11 phonemes, contrasting with the Taa language in southern Africa that includes over 140 sounds, including click consonants.
Bross explained that certain sounds correlate with specific meanings, noting that small things tend to have an "i" sound, while larger things have an "o" sound. This relationship arises from the frequency of sounds produced by different-sized objects.
Another intriguing phenomenon is the Bouba/Kiki effect, where people associate the made-up word "Bouba" with round shapes and "Kiki" with angular shapes, regardless of language or culture.
A separate study involving German researchers investigated how speakers perceive the sounds "R" and "L." A rolling "R" was linked to rough textures and jagged shapes, whereas an "L" was associated with smooth textures and flat forms, as reported in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
Marcus Perlman from the University of Birmingham explained that their research indicates that speech sounds possess specific textures and forms. The R/L effect is reportedly stronger and more consistent than the Bouba/Kiki effect. These correlations may influence the evolution of spoken language and the vocabulary used to describe texture and shape.
List suggested that some linguistic universals might trace back to a single proto-language. He mentioned that many linguists believe language emerged only once in human evolution, but he expressed doubt, stating, "I believe we do not have enough evidence." He emphasized that research only dates back roughly 10,000 years, while spoken language likely originated at least 250,000 years ago.