Language development and altitude may be linked. Ejective consonants, which are pronounced with an intense burst of air, largely developed in high-altitude areas, according to new research.
These ejective consonants, found in 18 percent of the world's languages, are not heard in English. To an English ear, they sound much like a click or pop. The closest the English language gets to an ejective consonant is a hard K sound.
The study showed that 87 percent of languages that use ejective consonants were centered within 310 miles or less of an area located 4,920 feet or more above sea level. In addition, researchers were able to show that the higher in elevation a language formed, the more likely it was to contain ejectives.
"This is really strong evidence that geography does influence phonology-the sound system of languages," Caleb Everett, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Miami, said. Everett is the author of the study announcing the results.
Everett studied almost 600 languages for this study, 92 of which contain ejectives. There are around 7,000 major languages spoken around the world today. By taking language center locations from the World Atlas of Linguistic Structures, and placing them on Google Earth and ArcGIS software, he was able to show that five of the six populated high-altitude regions developed languages with ejective consonants. These areas included spots in southern Africa, North and South America, and Eurasia. Such sounds are found in many Native American tongues, including the Chipewyan, Nez Perce, and Lakota languages. The only high altitude area without ejectives was the Tibetan plateau, where the people breathe faster than other cultures, perhaps as a different adaptation to the altitude.
The reason behind this correlation may be that to form ejective consonants, the speaker compresses air in their pharynx, which takes less effort in the thinner air found at higher altitudes. Also, since this sound does not require extra air from the lungs, it may help reduce the risk of dehydration by keeping water vapor in the body.
Earlier beliefs held that the effect of environment on the structure of a language was mainly due to its effects on the local society. A culture in a snowy climate, for instance, will have more ways to describe snow than will a culture where the feature is rare, for instance.
Other researchers have pointed to the idea that cultures in warmer climates use more vowels than those in colder climes, but the idea is still unproven.
"Understandingly, people will be skeptical, [but] the data [is] overwhelming," Everett said.
Research leading to the link between altitude and the development of language was published in the the online journal PLOS ONE on June 12.