Unrelated languages often use the same sounds when referring to particular concepts, such as the 'n' sound for 'nose'.

Researchers have tended to assume that spoken language is arbitrary, with no link between a word's sound and meaning. Damián Blasi at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and his colleagues statistically analysed the phonetic sounds in common words from 62% — more than 4,000 — of the world's languages. The team found evidence for 74 sound–meaning associations. For instance, the term for 'round' was often linked to the sound 'r', and tongue with 'l' or 'e'. These associations were found across continents and language families, suggesting that they emerged independently.

During language evolution, humans have intuitively linked sounds with certain key concepts, the authors suggest.

Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://doi.org/bqnd (2016)