Thousands of different languages ​​are spoken in the world, but cries of pain are the same everywhere – Researchers find out why

In the world an estimated seven thousand languages ​​are spoken. Where is their beginning? A multidisciplinary group of researchers sought to shed light on the matter by studying exclamations in different languages.

The results were published this week The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

It turned out that there is a strong similarity in exclamations expressing pain in the 131 studied languages ​​in different parts of the world. Vowels are central to them [a]and the narrower vowel that follows.

Most of the languages ​​studied were from Africa and Asia, but there were also languages ​​from Oceania, South America and Europe.

The Finnish language was not included in the study, but the result also applies to Finnish, where exclamations are made Ai! Aijai! Likewise in English, ouch! and to Spanish, yes!

In Holland, Norway and Portugal, the word is au! In Poland, you can also shout do not and in Germany besides that Ouch! in Sweden aj! and in Latvia ai!

Research team tried to find out the common origin of exclamations by also studying squeals and roars caused by pain.

The group wanted to test the hypothesis that words originate from sounds caused by emotions, i.e. bodily emotional states.

Squeals of joy and disgust and the words expressing them in different languages ​​were also examined in the same way.

It turned out that the non-verbal vocalizations associated with all three emotions actually have their own distinctive vowels. In screams of pain, the vowel is open, often [a]in squeals of joy again the front [i].

At the level of words, however, there was clear consistency only in exclamations of pain. No common characteristic was found in the words for joy and disgust. It was a disappointment for the researchers.

The group plans to continue by studying more exclamations, vocalizations and emotions.

Also studying the vocalizations of other animals could shed light on the origin of screams, says one of the leaders of the study Katarzyna Pisanski from the University of Lyon in a research bulletin.

Humans are the only speaking species, but looking at common features might help us understand where people diverged from others in the development of language and how it happened, says Pisanski.