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the language you speak may impact covid spread
japanese, with less 'aspirated' consonants, expels less droplets than speaking english.
sep 4 2020
3 minute read
researchers found a possible link between the spread of the coronavirus and language and pronunciation.
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japanese may be the safest language when it comes to preventing the spread of covid-19.
a recent study published in the medical hypotheses journal found the number of covid-19 cases in a country may be directly related to the native language of that nation, specifically the number of aspirated consonants in that language. for example, in english, the most commonly used consonants p, t and k accompany exhalation and are aspirated, which means an english speaker may release more droplets, as opposed to the japanese language which has less aspirated consonants.
the study, conducted by the rudn university in moscow, russia, was done in the hopes of building more accurate models to identify the spread of the highly infectious virus. covid-19 mainly infects people by way of droplets travelling from an infected person’s lungs to the air, hence the two metre distancing rule that may help prevent exposure to the virus. and while research has shown that the amount and speed of these droplets depends on a person coughing or sneezing, this study also suggests that the way we pronounce words, and the language we speak, plays a significant role in the transmission of droplets.
talking can lead to infection
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the study’s results show that “the amount of produced droplets depends on the sounds pronounced by an infected speaker.” and while the sounds that most spread of covid-19 and other viruses haven’t been identified yet, a rudn linguist suggested that “they might include aspirated consonants, i.e. the sounds that are accompanied by exhalation.”
a similar observation was made by scientists during the 2003 sars-cov-1 outbreak in south china in a study that found an interesting linguistic explanation for the rates of tourist infection. out of the 8,000 cases reported in 26 countries, travellers from the u.s. represented 70 of them, while japan had no cases at all, despite the fact that the number of japanese tourists exceeded those of the united states — a little over three million versus just over two. one explanation posed by the scientists was that the staff of chinese stores spoke to u.s. tourists in english — a language requiring more aspiration — while speaking japanese — a language with less aspiration — to japanese customers.
“although no clear relationship was observed, we do not rule out that the spread of covid-19 can be partially due to the presence of aspirated consonants in a country’s main language of communication. this can be a valuable insight for epidemiologists,’ said georgios georgiou, a postdoctoral researcher at the university’s department of general and russian linguistics.
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other languages like hindi, urdu or arabic also have many retroflex consonants that do not require the speaker to exhale a high amount of droplets out when speaking. fun fact: many arabic speakers living in the middle east do not use the letter p as it is not included in the language. they replace words like pepsi with bebsi, allowing less exhalation and droplets escaping the mouth.
despite the suggestion that language impacts the chances of exposure to the virus, masks and physical distancing continue to be the top preventative strategies, especially given data showing that not only are droplets expelled by simply speaking, droplets, but add a cough or a sneeze, and the virus could travel farther than two metres.
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