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IANS
Scientists have in an analysis of nearly two-thirds of the world's languages found that humans tend to use the same sounds for common objects and ideas, no matter what language they speak.
The research, shattered the cornerstone concept in linguistics and demonstrated a robust statistical relationship between certain basic concepts from body parts to familial relationships and aspects of the natural world and the sounds humans around the world use to describe them, researchers said.
"These sound symbolic patterns show up again and again across the world, independent of the geographical dispersal of humans and independent of language lineage," said Professor and Cognitive scientist Morten H Christiansen, of Cornell University in New York, US.
"There does seem to be something about the human condition that leads to these patterns. We do not know what it is, but we know it's there," Christiansen added.
For example, in most languages, the word for 'nose' is likely to include the sounds 'neh' or the 'oo' sound, as in 'ooze'; for 'tongue' an 'l' (as in"langue" in French).
Similarly 'leaf' would include the sounds 'b', 'p' or 'l'; 'sand' uses the sound 's', also words for 'red' and 'round' would include the 'r' sound.
"It doesn't mean all words have these sounds, but the relationship is much stronger than we'd expect by chance," Christiansen said.
The associations were particularly strong for words that described body parts.
The team also found certain words are likely to avoid certain sounds. This was especially true for pronouns.
