Why Aloha Sounds Like Sunshine

How the weather affects how we speak

Aloha, playa, dolcevita; these words bring to mind sunny beaches, colourful fish and dream vacations. Those very words sound relaxed and unbothered, as if they too were lying on a beach chair, sipping a refreshing tropical juice. Is this a sheer coincidence?

Compare them to Streichholzschachtel, krítarteikning, and, maybe familiar to some of you, dreicht. Do these give the same vibes? Or do they feel more like they come from the cold, harsh landscapes of Winterfell?

Even if there is a degree of cultural bias in how we view these words, that might not be the whole truth. Recently, scientists have compared and analysed thousands of languages from across the planet, and a curious trend has emerged. Languages from areas with warmer climates are indeed softer and more melodic, and the explanation is as straightforward as it is surprising.

Visualise this: you are on a hiking trip with your friends and you are walking back to camp on a cold, blustery night up north in the Highlands (and if you are actually from the Highlands and you’re thinking “it’s not that cold” well… I swear y’all are built different). The altitude already makes breathing difficult, and, in addition, with those temperatures, opening your mouth to speak and take in a nice dose of frozen air probably does not sound very appealing. So now think back to the words we looked at before; would you rather pronounce all those long open vowels in aloha, with the risk of catching a sore throat, or maybe murmur the quick, efficient dreicht without even having to open your teeth?

Even if those harsh consonants might not make you think of cocktails on the beach, when the cold gets serious, you really learn to appreciate them. 

Life in cold regions also means spending more time inside, where words do not have to travel very far. On the other hand, with sunny warm weather, people go outdoors more often and the more sonorous sounds of vowels allow for words to reach people even far away. This is why languages usually perceived as louder, like Spanish and Italian, also correspond to hotter climates.

Yet temperature is not the only element to take into account. The concept of “articulatory ease” says that when a language is developing, people will opt for those sounds that are easier to produce. Humid air, for example, makes it significantly easier to pronounce vowels (just think how carefully singers try to keep their vocal cords safe from drying), so languages found in tropical climates usually appear more reverberating; think Hawaiian, Hindi, or even Caribbean dialects of Spanish.

Now consider higher altitudes instead. Lower pressure makes stopping and releasing air easier, and thus consonants appear more frequently. For example, “ejectives” (those spitted sounds usually associated with beatboxing) appear only in a handful of languages, but if we look at a map, we see that these tend to coincide with the world’s major altitude regions like the Andes, the Cascade Range in North America, and the Caucasus. A prime example for the football fans among the readers, would be the Georgian player Khvicha K’varatskhelia, whose consonant-heavy name is indeed a product of the tall mountains of his home country.

We have thus seen how weather and geography itself can influence the way we speak, but humans are not the only species experiencing this. Studies on birds have demonstrated that their songs get simpler and more resounding in areas with greater forest cover, where complex tunes would get disrupted by trees and branches — very similar to how languages in tropical areas prefer vowels over consonants so that messages can travel more easily.

As with most things, the weather is just one of the many factors that determine how we speak. Politics, trade, and migration also play a vital role in shaping language. But now, next time you hear a foreign word, pay more attention to what pictures come to your mind; whether it’s golden shores or snowy mountains, maybe those vibes are not just guesses after all.

Illustration by Sandra Palazuelos Garcia