The vocal tract as a time machine: inferences about past speech and language from the anatomy of the speech organs
| Autor: | Dan Dediu, Abel Marinus Bosman, W A Baetsen, Andrea L. Waters-Rist, Scott R. Moisik |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male Language change Context (language use) General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Young Adult Speech Production Measurement Cultural Evolution Vowel Humans Speech History 15th Century Language Netherlands History 19th Century Speech organ Phonetics Anatomy Middle Aged History Medieval Variation (linguistics) History 16th Century Female General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Psychology Articulation (phonetics) Vocal tract |
| Zdroj: | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 376 |
| ISSN: | 1471-2970 0962-8436 |
| Popis: | While speech and language do not fossilize, they still leave traces that can be extracted and interpreted. Here, we suggest that the shape of the hard structures of the vocal tract may also allow inferences about the speech of long-gone humans. These build on recent experimental and modelling studies, showing that there is extensive variation between individuals in the precise shape of the vocal tract, and that this variation affects speech and language. In particular, we show that detailed anatomical information concerning two components of the vocal tract (the lower jaw and the hard palate) can be extracted and digitized from the osteological remains of three historical populations from The Netherlands, and can be used to conduct three-dimensional biomechanical simulations of vowel production. We could recover the signatures of inter-individual variation between these vowels, in acoustics and articulation. While ‘proof-of-concept’, this study suggests that older and less well-preserved remains could be used to draw inferences about historic and prehistoric languages. Moreover, it forces us to clarify the meaning and use of the uniformitarian principle in linguistics, and to consider the wider context of language use, including the anatomy, physiology and cognition of the speakers. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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