title: Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots.
abstract: We summarize a number of findings in laryngology demonstrating that perturbations of phonation, including increased jitter and shimmer, are associated with desiccated ambient air. We predict that, given the relative imprecision of vocal fold vibration in desiccated versus humid contexts, arid and cold ecologies should be less amenable, when contrasted to warm and humid ecologies, to the development of languages with phonemic tone, especially complex tone. This prediction is supported by data from two large independently coded databases representing 3,700+ languages. Languages with complex tonality have generally not developed in very cold or otherwise desiccated climates, in accordance with the physiologically based predictions. The predicted global geographic-linguistic association is shown to operate within continents, within major language families, and across language isolates. Our results offer evidence that human sound systems are influenced by environmental factors.
authors.affiliation: University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124; caleb@miami.edu.
authors.forename: Caleb
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Everett
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; and.
authors.forename: Damián E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Blasi
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Seán G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Roberts
keywords: adaptation; climate; language; tone