Phys.org discusses a recent paper [Abstract] on how words in the English language are structured.
Words in the English language are structured to help children learn according to research led by Lancaster University.
Words like "woof" accurately represent the sound of a dog while sounds with similar meanings may have a similar structure e.g. the "sl" sound at the beginning of a word often has negative properties as in "slime, slur, slum, slug".
An international team led by Professor Padraic Monaghan from the Department of Psychology at Lancaster University provides for the first time a comprehensive analysis of sound meaning structure using statistical techniques from biology and genetics.
He said: "Sounds relate to meaning for the words that children first encounter, addressing a critical question about how language is structured to aid learning. However, the later adult vocabulary is arbitrary, consistent with computational models of efficient language production and accurate language comprehension."
The debate about whether the sound of words contains information about meaning has continued for over 2,300 years. This issue lies at the foundation of modern linguistics and psychology of language, which has been brought into stark relief by recent studies of sound symbolism where words actually sound like their meaning. Sound symbolism has been suggested to be prevalent in language and necessary for language acquisition by children.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:56PM
> Sound symbolism has been suggested to be prevalent in language and necessary for language acquisition by children.
The Chinese beg to differ.
(And "woof" is a really bad example. It's a friggin onomatopoeia!)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday August 15 2014, @12:03AM
But the story said:
"Words in the English language are structured to help children learn".
(Which I also don't believe, but that's their theory).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday August 15 2014, @02:18AM
"Wan! Wan wan!" This is what Japanese dogs say, and even Japanese Doges.
The authors of the study are not very cunning linguists!
(Score: 1) by clone141166 on Friday August 15 2014, @02:56AM
Perhaps they should try to master debating instead?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday August 15 2014, @03:46AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @07:21AM
The spanish (from spain) written form for a bark is: «guau» (repeat as many times as the dog barks).
Please note that the pronuntiation of it is:
«g» (you can omit it in case of successive guaus for the cauda ones).
«u» like ue in «due» but shorter,
«a» like the a in «father»
«u» vid supra
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 20 2014, @08:44PM
This is what the preview button is for. Were those smart quotes? Tsk tsk.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Theophrastus on Friday August 15 2014, @03:06AM
here's a nice list (on an electrical-engineering site, of course) Animal Sounds (in various languages) [adelaide.edu.au]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Friday August 15 2014, @03:19AM
And what's wrong with onomatopoeic words? There are plenty of words in English and other languages that are that way. And given that any decent academic linguist will tell you, children are really the engines of language creation and change, such words are important. They may be the origin of many of these words.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday August 15 2014, @07:31AM
> Words like "woof" accurately represent the sound of a dog
The word "woof" is specifically "designed" to represent the dog's sound.
"Bark" said Gaspode The Wonder Dog.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @02:54PM
Onomonopia is only relevant in the presence of a written language. Children learning to talk will try and make any sound as part of valid language or communication.
(Score: 1) by Chillgamesh on Friday August 15 2014, @12:08AM
In the three languages i know (english, german, and french) almost all the words appropriate for a child's first set of vocab are one syllable.
Maybe a child's mind is similar to the mind of homo sapiens around the time of language formation. Simple words may be a heritage of such an evolution of language.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday August 15 2014, @12:13AM
Maybe a shouted NO works a whole lot quicker than "sweetie, would you please not bite"...
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by khchung on Friday August 15 2014, @07:01AM
Then all the different dialects of Chinese like Mandarin or Cantonese must be the easiest language to learn, EVERY SINGLE WORD in the language are one syllable! (Hint: they aren't easy to learn at all)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @07:04AM
One syllable? Like "mama", "papa", "baby", and "cootchicootchicoo"?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @12:53AM
I hope soylent grows enough such that janrinok-lhsi social socience bullshit posts become a rare, intersting curiosity on soylent, instead of its mainstay.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SlimmPickens on Friday August 15 2014, @01:39AM
We should invent a special shorthand to encode things in our sigs etc.
Can anyone think of a good name for a form of shorthand used at The Brown Site?
(Score: 2) by clone141166 on Friday August 15 2014, @03:03AM
Long Answer:
Flee flop floob flah flopple flabble flee flop mop flo! Hahahaha.
Flamble flomble flip fah fam fa fomble fibbil fipple fopple-foo.
Fimitty fimble fam flaflop fa foop fam fomm fa fop.
Flippity floopity flobble-flam-flib-flam-FLOO!
Short Answer:
Not very, at least if you want to be understood by other people...
(Score: 2) by mendax on Friday August 15 2014, @03:07AM
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday August 15 2014, @04:31AM
There is a distinct lack of formal names beginning with Sl [babynames.com].
1702845791×2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @07:12AM
yeah, this is just crappy pop-linguistics that real psycholinguists will cringe at. "Onamatopoeias are mnemonic" is hardly progress in the field, and the "sl" is just plain bollocks. One slime word in finnish is "räkä", and they really roll their "r"s, so it's about the least slippery sounding word this side of Czech.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday August 15 2014, @07:56PM
seems like a good nerd site would include slurm in this list. in fact those words almost scream for the inclusion of slurm
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 16 2014, @05:01AM
There's nothing negative about slurm.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 20 2014, @08:47PM
Not until you see how it's produced anyway.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @04:52AM
Another bullshit "social science" nonsense. Again, time to send in your submissions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @05:26AM
"janrinok" == "lhsi"?
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Friday August 15 2014, @08:09AM
Nah, I wouldn't post stories from the Daily Mail ;-)