The sound of a word like “knife” or “truck” seems totally arbitrary–it’s just a random sound we’ve assigned to a thing, right? But for several decades, scientists have found good evidence that the ...

Would you drive a SUV called a Himmer? Phonetic symbolism refers to the notion that the sounds of words, apart from their assigned definition, convey meaning. A new article applies this theory to ...

The names of these non-existent cities were crafted so that one, Fleen, contained a front vowel and the other, Floon, contained a back vowel. Participants were randomly asked to estimate the distance ...

These "I" and "E" vowels are formed by putting your tongue forward in the mouth. That's why they're called "front" vowels. With these words, your tongue depresses and folds back a bit. So "O", "A" and ...

Whether people find you “hot or not” could depend on the sound of your name, suggests a new study. Linguist Amy Perfors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, US, placed photos with ...

How many vowels does English have? Five, right? A, E, I, O, U. Oh, and sometimes Y. So, six? Actually, English has at least 14 different vowel sounds and, depending on the speaker and dialect, maybe ...

The secret physics at the core of every syllable, starting with the first words we speak. Human language is an incredible thing: a combination of mouth sounds that we combine into words, sentences, ...