Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
Department of Anthropology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA.
Bioessays. 2023 Apr;45(4):e2200246. doi: 10.1002/bies.202200246. Epub 2023 Feb 22.
Which sounds composed the first spoken languages? Archetypal sounds are not phylogenetically or archeologically recoverable, but comparative linguistics and primatology provide an alternative approach. Labial articulations are the most common speech sound, being virtually universal across the world's languages. Of all labials, the plosive 'p' sound, as in 'Pablo Picasso', transcribed /p/, is the most predominant voiceless sound globally and one of the first sounds to emerge in human infant canonical babbling. Global omnipresence and ontogenetic precocity imply that /p/-like sounds could predate the first major linguistic diversification event(s) in humans. Indeed, great ape vocal data support this view, namely, the only cultural sound shared across all great ape genera is articulatorily homologous to a rolling or trilled /p/, the 'raspberry'. /p/-like labial sounds represent an 'articulatory attractor' among living hominids and are likely among the oldest phonological features to have ever emerged in linguistic systems.
哪些音构成了最早的口语？原始音在系统发生或考古学上是无法恢复的，但比较语言学和灵长类学提供了一种替代方法。唇音是最常见的语音，几乎在世界上所有的语言中都存在。在所有的唇音中，爆破音“p”，如“Pablo Picasso”中的/p/，是全球最常见的清音，也是人类婴儿典型咿呀学语中最早出现的声音之一。全球无处不在和个体发生上的早熟意味着/p/样的声音可能早于人类第一次主要的语言多样化事件。事实上，大型猿类的声音数据支持这一观点，即所有大型猿类属共有的唯一文化声音在发音上与滚动或颤音/p/同源，即“raspberry”（覆盆子）。/p/样的唇音在现生灵长类动物中代表一个“发音吸引子”，并且可能是语言系统中最早出现的语音特征之一。
