They have found that word-initial consonants are, on average, around 13 milliseconds longer than their non-initial counterparts. The diversity of languages for which this effect was found suggests ...

Now, for the first time, comparative linguists have observed a pattern of acoustic effects that may serve as a distinct marker across diverse languages: the systematic lengthening of consonants at the ...

the systematic lengthening of consonants at the beginning of words. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the CNRS Laboratoire Structure et Dynamique des Langues ...

More information: Consonant lengthening marks the beginning of words across a diverse sample of languages, Nature Human Behaviour (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01988-4 Journal information ...