You may not have noticed this before, but languages from warmer climates like Hawaiian, Tagalog and often flow easily, with lots of spacious, open vowel sounds. On the other hand, languages like Russian, Danish and and Norwegian are filled with consonants and narrow vowel sounds. A new study of over 600 languages suggests that the development of our languages is affected in large part by its climate, and its terrain. This kind of linguistic development has long been acknowledged in the animal world; birds tend to sing at a higher pitch in urban environments to help them be heard more easily, whereas forest-dwelling birds sing at a lower frequency.
However, this new body of research carried out by University of California linguists Ian Maddieson and Christophe Coupe is the first to suggest that human language has followed a similar developmental pattern. They gathered data on 633 world languages, omitting widely spoken international languages such as English, Mandarin and Spanish because they are no longer limited to one climate. Using these language samples, they cross-analyzed them with ecological and climatic data to find out if indeed our languages are affected by our surroundings. A very clear pattern revealed itself: Languages in hotter, more tropical areas were often more full-bodied and melodious, and used much fewer consonants. In contrast, languages in colder, drier and more mountainous areas were much harsher in sound, and contained a lot more consonants.
