The 170th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America took place last week, and contained a very interesting paper that looked at the origins of human language. 

In it, the possibility of the effect that environment has had on the way that humans have formed language was explored.

A team of researchers at the University of New Mexico, lead by Ian Maddieson, examined the prevalence and frequency of vowels and consonants in 628 languages around the world (excluding the major ones which are spoken widely), and then checked the "climatic and environmental conditions" in which they were spoken. 

The aim of the research was to see if there was any correlation between geographic or environmental factors, and the results showed that "acoustic adaptation" could have played a part in how the various languages were formed. 

The findings showed that, in general, the sound of consonants tend to be of a higher frequency than vowels, and therefore are more easily distorted in areas where there is a lot of vegetation (such as forested areas) or even where there are warmer temperatures, which can cause the air to ripple. 

Vowels, which are generally at a lower frequency, are therefore easier to discern and the research showed that warmer areas or areas covered in dense forestation tended to have languages where vowels were more frequently used. 

This adaptation could have accounted for as much as a quarter of the variation in the use of vowels and consonants between languages, and the researchers believe that while there are a number of other factors that would have had an effect, it does give some small insight into how humans would have started to shape primitive language.

Via IFL Science