I’m surprised that you’re the first person to realize this, it feels like something all linguists would be interested in

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Agreed! And they absolutely should-this is an incredible field to analyze when it comes to the fundamentals of what makes language the way it is. I myself am gonna continue researching this, but I really want to see what other people come up with!

@MURDERPILLOW.

11 күн бұрын

Holy shit its Xavi, in his natural habitat!

I heard that this might be related to the Doppler effect. When a siren is coming towards you, you hear a high-pitched sound, when a siren is going away from you, the pitch gets lower. So distant objects get associated with low-frequency sounds.

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

that's insane. could totally be relevant

@MrRyanroberson1

24 күн бұрын

doubtful. the doppler effect is rarely noticable in the ancient world. the closest you could get would be spears flying away from yourself, you may notice a lowering of tone. instead i suspect it's something about how different frequencies travel better (specifically: you hear higher better when it's close, and lower better when it's far, relatively)

@satohime

11 күн бұрын

@@MrRyanroberson1 there are a lot of things that make such loud noises, instruments and human screaming along with natural things like rivers running, animal calls, or wind blowing all have the same effect with distance

As a Javanese speaker-my second language-when you mentioned the Javanese distal pronoun "ika", I was extremely confused because I've never heard anyone saying "ika". After a little bit of research on my own language (lol), I finally figured it out. Turns out "ika" was only used in old written tembangs (Javanese poetries), not in spoken day-to-day Javanese. We use "kaé" instead. Also, the "a" in "ika" is pronounced as ⟨ɔ⟩ (open-mid back rounded vowel). Anyway, learned something new from this video. Nice!

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Thanks for the heads up! I'll add this note to the description Edit: I reran the t-test with that new info and the results were still significant with p = 0.000496 for F1 and p = 0.001455 for F2 :)

@veinusch

Ай бұрын

​@@Sundrobrocc glad to hear that. btw good luck for your finals! :)

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

tysm:)

Babe wake up the new bouba-kiki just dropped

In Italian we have two words for 'here' (qui [kwi] and qua [kwa]) and two words for 'there (lì [li] and là [la]). Usually both forms are used without too much attention, but they actually imply a subtle difference: 'lì' means 'there, near you or not too distant' while 'là' is definitely 'there, distant from both speaker and audience'; 'qui' means 'here, near me or in a rather well determined place', while 'qua' means 'here, but in a more general, undetermined sense, like the whole place we're in, rather than a single spot.

@Sundrobrocc

18 күн бұрын

super cool!

@zacharygossom1069

3 күн бұрын

its the same in spanish! aquí - here (specific) acá - here (general) allí - there (specific) allá - there (general) considering the similarity in forms AND use they are probably related. spanish probably had the preposition "to, at" before the historical . but thats just speculation lol im not super knowledgable in spanish language history

This is honestly the best intro to linguistics in general and phonology in particular that I've ever seen!

@Sundrobrocc

11 күн бұрын

That means so much :) If that's the case then I might make dedicated videos teaching those things in the future, so we'll see!

Okay so you know how some people claim "English and History" while others will claim "Math and Science" and have split the subjects as though they were opposing? Yeah, this video brought them all together 😭

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

RIGHT?? I know it makes it easier to teach in our school systems, but really life is just knowledge yk? Everything ties into itself in many many ways and it's why I love linguistics so much since it's so interdisciplinary!

I've sort of had a thought about this concept before but never delved in so this video is absolutely appreciated! The idea of convergent phonological phenomenon and the possible driving forces fascinates me. Another example I have pondered but not looked into is how the climate where a language develops affects its phonology. Like do incredibly cold dry regions gear towards fewer and shorter vowels with more harsh consonants and consonant clusters whereas warmer humid places would tend towards more open and flowing vowels with soft consonants thus meaning there could be languages near eachother but not interacting still having a pseudo-sprachbund deal happening where aspects converge simply because the environment makes those sounds the most comfortable to pronounce or easiest to understand and differentiate from one another or that make it more convenient to jam pack information into as few words/syllables as possible to conserve energy/heat when talking or to have far more syllables and words to convey the same information because the cold sapping energy whenever the mouth is open isn't a concern. That's as far as I have thought on it but it seems like it could be an interesting topic for a video.

@Sundrobrocc

7 күн бұрын

I've been interested by that phenomenon for a while now and it's absolutely something I'd make a video out of, so we'll see!

@SurfTheSkyline

7 күн бұрын

@@Sundrobrocc well you've earned a sub out of me from what you've put out thus far, so if it does end up becoming a video I look forward to it and if not I still look forward to whatever else you have in store!

This is really interesting to me because of throat-singing (low frequency, high volume), because we know how it developed in the barren steppes as a communication tool on long flat distances for herding animals as nomads... Loving your channel so far!

@Sundrobrocc

9 күн бұрын

that's super cool!

This is a very fascinating video. Just one constructive criticism: რომ /rom/ is not a demonstrative in Georgian; it corresponds to the English "that" which is is used to form relative clauses (ex. I think THAT she will come) The word ის /is/ is the nominative case form of "that" as a demonstrative.

@Sundrobrocc

24 күн бұрын

Thanks for the comment! I've added this correction to the description

This is an amazing video. I can tell you've taken a lot of inspiration from great minds such as jan Misali! I'm absolutely delighted there's now people making more videos on linguistics that are not just educational, but also fun and interesting.

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

HI SUEE THANKS:) conlang critic gotta be the best linguistics content in the world tbh

This was such an interesting and well researched video! I'm not much of a linguist but I am interested in forms of communications. Maybe the reason why the sounds are different is because the more open a/o sounds can reach farther when you shout compared to sharper more nasally I/E sounds? Maybe back before spoken language, when we were grunting at each other, this helped out more for long distance communications 'n such? idk..but it's fun to think about. Thanks for the great video!

@Sundrobrocc

11 күн бұрын

Interesting theory-all ideas help when it comes to new stuff like this! Thanks for the comment :)

In Russian we have этот /ˈɛtət/, эта /ˈɛtə/, это /ˈɛtə/ for "this" and эти /ˈɛtʲɪ/ for "these", while having тот /tot/, та /ta/, то /to/ for that and те /tʲe/ for "those", so your observation makes sense. P.S. those words are masculine, feminine, neutral and plural respectively.

I would think something like this subconsciously has to do with imitating sounds that are farther away, and things farther away are generally going to be bigger/louder, therefore deeper, and therefore a more open vowel would be needed. The opposite would be the case for things close by, which could be imitated by something relatively smaller close by. I would imagine there are other word pairings besides just this/that which have a similar property.

@Sundrobrocc

14 күн бұрын

Really interesting

Nice work man really love this sorta content and good luck with your finals. When a sound source gets closer to us, obviously the sound gets louder in general but content in the very high and low parts of the sonic spectrum increase in loudness disproportionately, while the treble and bass get lost more quickly with distance, leaving more of the midrange. So maybe it could make sense for vowels with more space between the formants to be used for closer things while vowels with closer together formants are seeming further away, this also makes me think of how things visually converge on the horizon. In a similar vein I guess stuff is more likely to look rounder and more mellow from a distance, while sharper and more detailed from up close. Maybe you could even argue that there is more urgency and alertness associated with the "sharper" vowels, raised awareness would probably tend to become more appropriate the closer something gets I guess?? I wonder if there are any patterns in words for away and toward or leave and approach, exit and enter, out and in etc.

@Sundrobrocc

7 күн бұрын

such cool thoughts!

my guy, this is amazing.

Comrades, this is Big Brother.

In Polish here is 'tu' (well, 'tutaj' in full form) and there is 'tam', and it's like that for virtually all of listandards of Slavic languages (local dialects are different topic), so it rather applies. But this and that are 'to' and 'tamto' (I'm going to use the Neuter form for the sake of examplification), which means litterally 'it' and 'there-it'. Butspeaking of Slavic languages, Macedonian developed really complex system of demonstration, I mean Bulgarian itself has it impressive, but Macedonian can stack prepositions and articles (yes, Bulgarian and Macedonian have articles, strange thing for Slavs) to make as precise or unprecise, I mean they can differentiate between this specific object far away or something like this here and now, or unspecified stuff in unspecified location. Cool stuff. Nice channel, you have my sub.

@Sundrobrocc

8 күн бұрын

Super cool info, thank you so much!

Great video! I’m impressed with the amount of research and analysis that went into it. I’ve never thought about the connection between words starting with gl- or ending with -ump before, really fascinating! Good luck with your finals :]

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Thank you so much :)

Here's another language that follows that 'rule'. The demonstrative pronouns in Hindi (I'm an L2 speaker) happen to be यह (this) and वह (that) which are meant to be pronounced /jəɦ/ and /ʋəɦ/, but in most of northern and central India, they tend be pronounced [je] and [vɵ] as in the Delhi dialect (or [və] in the Eastern states like Bihar and especially Jharkhand). This is cool because despite originally having the same vowel, they gravitated toward the tendencies you described. /e/ has a lower F1 and higher F2 than /ə/ and /ɵ/ has a lower F1 and a slightly lower F2 than /ə/. And for the Eastern states that keep /ə/, that still has a higher F1 and lower F2 than /e/. Also, the words for 'here' and 'there' are यहाँ and वहाँ which are again meant to be pronounced /jəɦãː/ (that's supposed to be a nasalized /ä/, if only I knew how to type it) and /ʋəɦãː/ but are generally pronounced [jã] and [ʋã]. I guess the symbolism here is that since /ʋ/ is a darker sound than /j/, it almost sounds muffled, as if it's coming from a place farther away than /j/. Interesting, huh. (My bad if I messed up the brackets and slashes, never properly used IPA before.)

@Sundrobrocc

14 күн бұрын

Awesome! Really cool that you bring up consonants since that's definitely something else I want to investigate along with other features like nasalization, tone, etc. We have so much to go but it's such an interesting field of exploration, so we'll see!

That was a really interesting topic to listen to!! I've never thought about that. Regarding the Diminutive and Aumentative, that's also the case in Portuguese, and I began thinking about that before you gave the Spanish example. If cão (dog) you can make cãozinho (little and cute dog) and... Hummm "cãozão"... Wait that doesn't really work nor sounds something that exists. (That's probably cuz it's already nasalised and shouldn't be even more) Ok what about livro (book), from there you can make a livrinho and a livrão.

@Sundrobrocc

19 күн бұрын

Awesome!

This is very interesting. When learning the constructed language Toki Pona, which only has one demonstrative, "ni" (from the Thai word), this "rule" would sometimes cause problems. I would make up a "na" as a distal version of "ni". This could maybe be be influenced from english (though it is not my native language. My native language is Swedish, which doesn't follow this rule (det här/det där)) but it is still interesting.

@Sundrobrocc

29 күн бұрын

that's extremely interesting woah :O

love your videos so much theyre so interesting and ive loved linguistics for such a long time

This video is very informative and clearly-presented! I think Taiwanese is an interesting case in terms of this topic because the words for this and that are tsit-ê (this) and hit-ê (that), respectively. Therefore, the only difference is the consonants at the beginning of the words. However, I think that the consonant sound of ts would make the tongue position be closer to the roof of mouth than that of the consonant h, so the theory in this video might be able to be applied to Taiwanese as well!

@Sundrobrocc

10 күн бұрын

Really cool! I definitely want to look at other sounds (non-vowels) when I repeat this study more in-depth since it's fascinating. Thanks for the comment!

Lovely video, I always LOVE hearing about sound symbolism stuff like this! I also really like the graphics you used throughout the video, and the general editing style you use! Keep up the great work, and best of luck on finals! o7

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

thank u sm:) it's really really cool and i'll undoubtedly keep learning about it

Aaah I always feel weird when I make up words for my conlang based on how concepts "feel" phonetically to me, but it does seem like we do it in real life, a lot more than we realize. I actually believe the first languages probably worked more or less this way.

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

yeahhh i do that all the time actually!

That’s cool! Can you make a video on the relationship between linguistics and e-waste?

@astrOtuba

Ай бұрын

There's a relationship?

This is actually such an interesting concept I've never thought of until now, and it turns out it's an aspect in all of my conlangs that i've never even realized lol As for diminutives and augmentatives in portuguese, -ão or -ona are the augmentative suffixes, whereas -inho(a) is the diminutive. So with "cachorro," the augmentative is "cachorrão" or "cãozarrão," and the diminutive is "cachorrinho" In english, too, words like "over," "mega," "super," for large things, and suffixes "-ling," "-y," or "sie(s)" for small things (like "oopsies >

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

That's so cool dude! Cuz yea when I noticed it in my conlangs I was like "ok nah I needa look into this" lol

Sometimes staring at data you start making spurious connections. You had me with the statistical test though. Just don't go mad trying to look for patterns

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Ofc! That's why we do statistics tests-so that we're a little more sure that we're not going crazy :)

YAYAYAYAY NEW UPLOADDDD!!!

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

EHEH AW

Could it be that 'i' sounds are shorter and harder to extend the pronunciation to last a long time but an open 'o/a' sound can be elongated and therrfore have the sound travel a longer distance. So maybe the conception of short/long distance came from the pragmatics of how far the sound could be heard or extended. (Totally spit balling)

@Sundrobrocc

7 күн бұрын

Spit balling is extremely important! It's how we end up with theories that make more sense than others, and these thoughts undoubtedly will contribute to understanding this possible relationship

Ah but alas, the Sapir Fart hypothesis is proven at last. Through freudian analysis, we can determine that people subconsciously detect the distance between the tongue and the borders of the mouth, which allows them to symbolically understand the real world around them.

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

grar ...

I have a theory. In my mind, sounds like i and e are associated with higher frequencies then a, o, u. Maybe that's just me though. And lower frequencies travel further then higher ones. Maybe that could lead people to associate i, e sounds with closer distance then a, o, u. Maybe it could also be related to how wide the mouth is opened when producing sounds.

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

interesting thoughts!

Commenting to stay on Yves Malaghast tok😭

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

EGEHE

That's an interesting observation about the feminine versions of the Russian demonstratives. It seems that in Russian, shorter and higher frequency sounds like 'Ta (that)' and 'Te (those)' are associated with distant objects, while a longer sound like 'Eta (this)' and 'Eti (These)' is used to bring more attention to closer subjects. This linguistic logic of using sound to convey distance and attention is quite fascinating. What are your thoughts on this? Are you from New York or Philadelphia? :) That is the question regarding your accent.

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Yeaah it's interesting. The point I was making though is that the *distal* plural demonstrative has /je/ which is supposed to be found in the proximal counterparts. Point is, this study only works for *my sample* of masculine nominative demonstratives, and I'm not yet quite sure of anything regarding other demonstratives like feminine or plural ones, so it's just something I'd have to investigate further in the future. I do think it's really cool though! And btw haha nope! Not from those places :)

@HarrierPanels

Ай бұрын

@@Sundrobrocc Georgia? :)

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Closer! Idk why i have you guessing LOL but yea

@HarrierPanels

Ай бұрын

@@Sundrobrocc :)))) I heard that women may have a higher sensitivity to certain frequencies, particularly in the higher range, which can enable them to hear sounds that men may not be able to perceive as easily. This heightened sensitivity is often attributed to the biological differences in the structure and function of the auditory system between men and women. The ability to hear higher frequencies can be advantageous in certain situations, such as hearing the cries or sounds of a child. Women may have a better ability to detect and respond to these higher-pitched sounds due to their enhanced sensitivity in that frequency range. Also regarding why humans have two ears that is to help determine the direction from which a sound is coming. This ability is known as sound localization or auditory localization. When a sound reaches our ears, it arrives at each ear at slightly different times and with slightly different intensities. Our brain processes these differences and uses them to calculate the direction and distance of the sound source. This phenomenon is known as binaural hearing. The time delay between when a sound reaches one ear compared to the other ear helps us determine the horizontal direction of the sound source. The brain analyzes this time difference, known as interaural time difference (ITD), to localize the sound. Additionally, the difference in sound intensity between the two ears, known as interaural level difference (ILD), helps us determine the vertical direction of the sound source. The brain uses this information to determine whether the sound is coming from above or below. Having two ears allows us to have a more accurate perception of the direction and location of sounds in our environment. This is important for our safety, communication, and overall spatial awareness.

Very interesting

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Thanks!!

Your example with "gl-" seems to be irrelevant as most likely they are similar because of common origin. Does it work in any non-indoeuropean language?

@Sundrobrocc

10 күн бұрын

Fair point. I'd say I think it's the same concept behind Kiki/Bouba (one sounds sharper than the other) which worked even among Tamil speakers in India (a Dravidian language), though I'm sure you mean with actual words. In that case, I can't really think of any non-Indo-European language with this kind of symbolism, but that's probably just because I haven't looked into it enough. I'll absolutely keep your comment in mind for the next version of the study I was talking about. Thank you so much for this!

0:37 the entry for Hebrew is sort of wrong, "hu" is the third person singular male pronoun, and i guess it could be used as a demonstrative for male nouns (For female nouns you'll use "hi") but I wouldn't say it's more distal than "ze", in truth "ze" is both proximal and distal, hebrew doesn't really have a proximal distal distinction.

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

That's my fault for not specifying, but the entry in the video was specifically for Biblical Hebrew-the info of which I got from this guy → kzread.info/dash/bejne/gHahsMqnnsi2kqQ.html&ab_channel=KenSchenck I'll add this note to the description :)

Do you want to publish this in a small independent journal or anywhere else? I'd like to take a look at the data:)

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Data can be found at 3:15 in the video (should be high enough quality to read stuff) As for the offer, thank you so much! It means a lot but I'm not sure I'd be in a position to do that at the moment. Feel free to email me (email in channel bio) however :)

Out of curiosity, how did you pick the sample of languages?

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Someone asked a similar question, so I'll just copy and paste my reply here: -- I pretty much got a bunch of language families and then looked through their descendants. I tried assuring there wouldn't be multiple languages from any given subfamily (hence French is the only Romance language out of the Indo-European family) to make sure I could represent as much diversity as possible. In a lot of cases though, I picked more commonly spoken languages since there were many for which I either couldn't find resources for or did not trust resources I found (istg some languages legit just have a (probably) terrible translation of the bible and then some random reference grammar from the 1800s) I plan to replicate this in the future with more robust sampling and including info on other distances/gender/case/etc so we'll see!

Not the best at this but maybe it's also related to our intuitive understanding of the physics behind sounds? Think Doppler effect for example 🤔

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

That would make sense! Like how I said perhaps we're subconsciously thinking of the space created in our mouths and how it's affected by the position of our tongue. Really cool stuff to look into

@aggressive_pizza1279

Ай бұрын

@@Sundrobrocc Yes! What I was thinking of though is the way noises sound when far from the listener as compared to being right near their ear. I'm not sure if it is correct but maybe a far-away sound/ echo is perceived as a lower pitch?

Interesting video! Btw I know noise can be hard to control, and it sounded like you were recording this somewhere where you get traffic sounds which can be hard to filter out, but I wonder if the noise which sounds a bit like an orchestra tuning up was added deliberately for aesthetic purposes as it's a bit louder than the other traffic-like sounds 😛(and sometimes more salient than your voiceover). If so it's best not to start adding extra sound complexity until your basic voiceover is noise-free and all syllables are clearly audible (but ignore if this was not a deliberate addition!)

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Yeah haha the background sound was actually an ambient song thing I made a while back, so it's on purpose. But some of my friends do agree that it was a little loud at some points, so I'll be more careful next time :)

@j_razavi

Ай бұрын

@@Sundrobrocc Ah sorry if I was a bit mean about it then -- I'm sure it's a great piece without the voiceover (or maybe one ought to play the video twice, first as information, then as art!)

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

No worries at all haha! Thanks:)

What was your selection process for the 70 languages you tested?

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

I pretty much got a bunch of language families and then looked through their descendants. I tried assuring there wouldn't be multiple languages from any given subfamily (hence French is the only Romance language out of the Indo-European family) to make sure I could represent as much diversity as possible. In a lot of cases though, I picked more commonly spoken languages since there were many for which I either couldn't find resources for or did not trust resources I found (istg some languages legit just have a (probably) terrible translation of the bible and then some random reference grammar from the 1800s) I plan to replicate this in the future with more robust sampling and including info on other distances/gender/case/etc so we'll see!

In Japanese you have "kono/sono/ano" for "this one/that one/that thing over there" and "kore/sore/are" for the adjective forms ("this/that/the … over there"). I'm not sure where "ika" came from EDIT: in other words "ko-" is proximal, "so-" is medial, and "a-" is distal DOUBLE EDIT: Whoops, confused Japanese and Javanese!

@veinusch

Ай бұрын

It's Javanese, not Japanese. There are iki, kiyi (close); iku, kuwi (somewhat far); and ika, kaé (far).

@columbus8myhw

Ай бұрын

@@veinusch Ahhh.

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

LOLL it happens!! dw:)

thank you for injecting brainrot halfway through🙏ko'u attention span iki

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Iki, Kiki rānei?

@choqi29

Ай бұрын

@@Sundrobrocc is that a fucking macron? i think im gonna be sick. Reported!

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

NOOOO

how is this not a paper? i mean, i could literally use this as my final undergraduate paper

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Funny you ask-that's gonna be one of the coming videos I make (semi-long read, sorry lol) Last year I wrote a paper on a particular word in French (more details in the coming vid). Thing is, I was 16 last year so I couldn't really publish it in any significant journal (critique #1), so I sought out the help of a professor at one of the universities in my state. She helped out, and everything went well and if nothing comes up, it should be published next month. While I did have a surprisingly successful experience with academia given I'm still in high school, I learned a lot about it in the process. Unfortunately, I feel that modern universitary academia has taken the wrong path. What is often happening in this kind of research-especially in areas like literature, social science, and the natural sciences-is publishing for the sake of publishing, publishing for money, publishing for prestige, and NOT publishing to genuinely uphold or disseminate knowledge. That's my biggest problem with research, and it's why I love platforms like KZread so much. Anyone is able to contribute to knowledge, anyone can ACCESS that knowledge (if everything goes well and my French paper is published, I literally wouldn't even be able to read MY OWN publication without buying a membership to the journal), and anyone can offer suggestions, improvements, et cetera. If you check my videos' descriptions, I'll always have corrections/notes from people in the comments, since I don't care about prestige or any of that, I just genuinely want to contribute to the field of knowledge of the world in a meaningful and accessible way. TL;DR - Academia sucks. Video on it soon :)

@gabmarquetto871

Ай бұрын

@@Sundrobrocc thats why i am grateful to live in a country such as brazil where research is available for free lol and i prefer youtube so much because all is more interesting and i dont have to look at a wall of text

¿so si quiero un gran mojito me ordeno un mojón?

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

ASÍ MISMO

You could write Yuwaalaraay's family as "P.-Nyungan" to fit in the table instead of just calling it "Aboriginal" (aboriginal to where? and... that's not a language family lol)

@Sundrobrocc

Ай бұрын

Dude thanks for this comment-I've always had a problem with the term "aboriginal" cuz it kinda makes no sense but it's so often used to describe Australian languages and the reference grammar I used to find the demonstratives called it that too. I'll add corrections to the description :)

hi :3 UwU

@Sundrobrocc

12 күн бұрын

....hi? HAHAH