Why Are Letters Shaped the Way They Are?

By Shayla Love,  February 11, 2022

Excerpt: Research now suggests that our languages are riddled with iconicity, and that it may play a role in language evolution, and how we learn and process language. Along with this evidence from The Color Game, in the last decade and a half, an increase in cross-cultural studies has re-upped the attention on iconicity, and pushed back against the doctrine of arbitrariness. “It is now generally accepted that natural languages feature plenty of non-arbitrary ways to link form and meaning, and that some forms of iconicity are pretty pervasive,” said Mark Dingemanse, a linguist at Radboud University, who said that he too learned in Linguistics 101 that “the sign is arbitrary.” “Iconicity has become impossible to ignore.” 

The post includes a short video: The world’s first EMOJI translator!

See article at: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4awqz3/why-are-letters-shaped-the-way-they-are?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits