The structure of English is completely different from the structure of Portuguese, which is not that similar to that of Spanish. And let's not even start talking about German, Russianand Greek. However, according to a study by linguists at the University of East Anglia, there are two words that every language in the world has.
Can you get any idea of what they are?
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According to research led by Professor Kenny Coventry, the words “this” and “that” are present in all languages – with their appropriate translations, obviously. The study was published in the scientific journal Nature Human Behavior.
The research refers more to the concept of spatial demonstrative pronouns – the meaning that is implicit in these words. A little confused? Understand how the study was conducted.
To reach this conclusion, the linguists from the university recruited almost a thousand speakers of 29 languages – and from several linguistic families.
The researchers presented them with objects of different colors and shapes, placed at different distances. Volunteers would then have to describe the objects in their mother tongue, using colors, nouns and demonstrative pronouns.
So, for example, if there was a red circular object, people should say: “this red circle”.
It was then noticed that speakers of all 29 languages in the study use “this” and “that” to refer to objects. This has always been a controversy among linguists. And the study came, precisely, to shed light on a possible solution to this impasse.
After all, if we use the same words to explain spatial distances, this means that our way of communicating is not that different. According to scientists, this is an important step towards understanding the simplest and most primary nature of language and also the evolution of the various languages in the world.
Graduated in Social Communication from the Federal University of Goiás. Passionate about digital media, pop culture, technology, politics and psychoanalysis.
