The sounds of prehistoric speech
1Department of Anthropology, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA.
Summary
This study reviews sound patterns in modern languages to infer features of prehistoric speech. Findings suggest early humans may have favored certain consonants and vowels, indicating speech adaptation.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Phonetics
- Historical Linguistics
Background:
- Contemporary languages exhibit widespread phonological and phonetic tendencies.
- Analysis of sound frequencies in word lists and phoneme inventories provides cross-linguistic data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review evidence for phonological and phonetic tendencies in contemporary languages.
- To infer likely phonetic characteristics of Upper Palaeolithic languages.
- To explore hypotheses regarding sound systems of prehistoric languages.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of sound type frequencies in global language data.
- Comparison of contemporary language patterns with hypothesized prehistoric language features.
Main Results:
- Contemporary languages show tendencies favoring specific nasal and voiceless stop consonants, peripheral vowels, and disfavoring posterior voiced consonants.
- Evidence suggests Upper Palaeolithic languages likely shared these tendencies.
- Hypotheses propose prehistoric languages may have lacked labiodental consonants and used more vowels than modern languages.
Conclusions:
- Speech sounds appear to adapt to subtle, potentially population-varying pressures.
- Phonetic tendencies observed today may offer insights into the evolution of human language.
- Reconstructing prehistoric languages relies on comparative analysis of linguistic features.
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