Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33745314›Full record

ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021

The sounds of prehistoric speech.

Caleb Everett

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. The vocal tract as a time machine: inferences about past speech and language from the anatomy of the speech organs.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021
    Article
  4. Reconstructing prehistoric languages.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021
    Article
  5. Inferring recent evolutionary changes in speech sounds.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021
    Article
  6. Language evolution: examining the link between cross-modality and aggression through the lens of disorders.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Caleb EverettDepartment of Anthropology, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Evidence is reviewed for widespread phonological and phonetic tendencies in contemporary languages. The evidence is based largely on the frequency of sound types in word lists and in phoneme inventories across the world's languages. The data reviewed point to likely tendencies in the languages of the Upper Palaeolithic. These tendencies include the reliance on specific nasal and voiceless stop consonants, the relative dispreference for posterior voiced consonants and the use of peripheral vowels. More tenuous hypotheses related to prehistoric languages are also reviewed. These include the propositions that such languages lacked labiodental consonants and relied more heavily on vowels, when contrasted to many contemporary languages. Such hypotheses suggest speech has adapted to subtle pressures that may in some cases vary across populations. This article is part of the theme issue 'Reconstructing prehistoric languages'.

Indexed as

Cultural EvolutionLanguageSoundSpeechSpeech PerceptionHumansconsonantsphonemesprehistoric speechUpper Palaeolithicvowels

Identifiers

PMID33745314
PMCPMC8059574

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.