Linguists Explore Universal Traits of Human Language

A new study examines commonalities in sounds and expressions across 131 languages to uncover insights into the origins of spoken communication.

Researchers analyzed how people from diverse cultures express pain, joy, and disgust, finding some shared patterns, such as open vowel sounds like 'ah' for pain.
The study highlights that while some linguistic traits, like 'mama' for mother, are widespread, no feature is truly universal across all languages.
Certain sounds, such as 'm,' are among the first produced by infants but are absent in rare languages like Rotokas, which uses only 11 phonemes.
Phenomena like the Bouba/Kiki effect link specific sounds to shapes, suggesting a connection between linguistic sounds and sensory perception.
Linguists believe spoken language may have originated over 250,000 years ago, though evidence remains limited to the last 10,000 years.