Published on November 15, 2024 at 11:50. / Modified on November 15, 2024 at 12:01.
• A linguistic study looks at the interjections and vocalizations that we emit when faced with certain emotions.
• It shows, in 131 languages from five continents, that the vowel a, or its sound equivalent, is often found in the expression of pain, but not that of disgust or joy.
• Research is continuing to try to explain this particularity.
Are there common points in the interjections of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken around the world? A group of scientists based in France, China and Australia chose to study these onomatopoeias, as well as unconventional vocalizations. Two modes of expression long disdained by the scientific community – even considered rubbish – because they do not present complexity. We now know a little more thanks to the study of a selection of 131 languages spoken in South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe.
Let us pause for a moment on the linguistics vocabulary that we ourselves had to revise. “Interjections are elements of language for which speakers of the same language culturally agree on the meaning and form, which are the subject of a convention,” explains Maïa Ponsonnet, researcher at the National Center French Scientific Research Institute (CNRS), first author of a study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. For example, for pain, the French “ouch”, the English “ouch” or the Spanish “ay”, listed in dictionaries. “Non-linguistic, or unconventional, vocalizations are sounds that are not necessarily recognized by other speakers. For example, if I get burned and say ‘oooh,’ or something that sounds like it, other people may not immediately perceive that I’m expressing pain.”
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