Department of Anthropology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA.
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 13;11(1):1066. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-80190-8.
We test the hypothesis that a specific anatomical feature, the dental malocclusion associated with reduced dental wear, causes languages to adapt by relying more heavily on labiodental consonants. In contrast to previous work on this topic, we adopt a usage-based approach that directly examines the relative frequency of such labiodental sounds within phonetically transcribed word lists and texts from thousands of languages. Labiodentals are shown to be very infrequent in the languages of hunter gatherers, who tend to have edge-to-edge bites as opposed to the overbite and overjet observed in populations that consume softer diets and rely heavily on eating utensils. This strong tendency is evident after controlling for Galton's problem via multiple methods including frequentist and Bayesian linear mixed modeling. Additionally, we discuss data from Amazonian hunter gatherers with edge-to-edge bites. The languages of these populations are shown not to use labiodentals frequently, or to have only recently begun doing so. Finally, we analyze the speech of English speakers with varying bite types, demonstrating how the sounds used by individuals reflect the same phenomenon. The diverse findings converge on the same conclusion: speech adapts to anatomical differences within and across populations.
我们检验了一个假设，即特定的解剖特征——与牙齿磨损减少相关的牙列不齐——导致语言通过更多地依赖唇齿辅音来进行适应。与之前关于这个主题的研究不同，我们采用了一种基于用法的方法，直接在数千种语言的语音转录单词列表和文本中检查这些唇齿音的相对频率。唇齿音在狩猎采集者的语言中非常罕见，他们的牙齿通常是边缘对边缘的咬合，而不是在那些食用柔软食物并严重依赖餐具的人群中观察到的上牙覆盖下牙和前牙突出的深覆合深覆盖。通过包括频率主义和贝叶斯线性混合建模在内的多种方法控制高尔顿问题后，这种强烈的趋势变得明显。此外，我们还讨论了来自边缘对边缘咬合的亚马逊狩猎采集者的数据。这些人群的语言并不经常使用唇齿音，或者只是最近才开始这样做。最后，我们分析了具有不同咬合类型的英语使用者的语音，展示了个体使用的声音如何反映出相同的现象。这些多样化的发现得出了相同的结论：语音会适应人群内和人群间的解剖差异。
