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Linguists Employ Ultrasound to Unravel Mysteries of Ancient Tongues

by Warren Riddle on December 22, 2010 at 08:31 AM

ultrasoundMany linguists believe the ancient "African click languages" hold the key to understanding the ancestry and evolution of human language. Approximately 30 cultural groups still actively speak the languages, which incorporate dozens of "click consonants." Those clicks have largely remained a phonetic mystery, as linguists have typically struggled to determine the specific vocal actions required, including the direction of airflow, the constriction of the mouth and the actual articulation techniques.

Ohio State University scientist Amanda Miller has devoted the past decade to unraveling those mysteries, and she believes a piece of modern technology holds the key. According to Popular Science, Miller sits with a select group of linguists who use ultrasound technology to watch "the tongue as it moves in real time." Other forms of medical technology, like MRIs, apparently aren't fast enough to effectively capture the incredibly rapid movements involved with click production. Through her ultrasound investigations, however, Miller has been able to organize and classify "more than 40 different kinds of click consonants" for the International Phonetic Alphabet language database.

Prior to the ultrasound studies, scientists primarily "relied on x-rays and glue-on electronic probes" to study click speakers, but those methods weren't exactly welcomed by local villagers. University of Arizona professor Diana Archangeli related that dilemma by saying, "You can imagine if you walk into a village and say, 'Look, people, all I want to do is blow-dry your tongue and glue things to it,' people might be a little nervous." Well, yeah. It probably shouldn't take a scientist to deduce that.

Tags: ClickConsonant, clicks, linguistics, OhioStateUniversity, phonetic, science, top, ultrasound

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