Many factors influence our languages and accents — where we live, where we grew up, what our parents sounded like. But in recent years, researchers have been investigating another possible influence — climate.
The idea that climate affects language is not new, but only recently have researchers had the tools to properly investigate the hypothesis. Now, large databases of languages from around the world, coupled with the computing power to look for patterns in those languages and match those with climate data, are making it possible to see whether climate influences language and, if so, how.
Caleb Everett, an anthropologist who studies language across the world’s cultures, says that linguists generally agree that in languages, there is a bias toward what experts call “articulatory ease.” In other words, we tend to use sounds that are easy to make. But what’s easy to make can depend on environmental conditions. Some sounds ...
