Although the research goes back to March of 2020 putting it all together makes the story post-worthy.
First up, Popular Mechanics, June 11, 2020:
- Vice reports on the ways different language sounds carry infectious droplets.
- Droplets travel huge distances from sneezes and coughs, but also from everyday speech.
- Fast, vowel-heavy languages likely transmit more moisture than slower languages with less airflow.
Scientists believe the way we speak could affect rates of transmission of COVID-19 (coronavirus)—and some languages are better than others, because they require less of the airflow that pushes moisture droplets out of our mouths. But does this really make a difference?
One of the key ways even homemade cloth masks are thought to help slow the spread of coronavirus is by simply keeping your moisture to yourself. Even humid regular air carries an amount of moisture in the form of microscopic droplets, but while air molecules pass easily through a cloth barrier, water droplets are more likely to get snagged.
Scientists have focused a lot on transmission of droplets by coughing, which is a common symptom of what is, at the most basic level, a respiratory illness. And sneezing always makes the news because its trajectory and power are surprising, like bottle rockets or lightning strikes for wild fast particles that come out of your nose and mouth.
But language is a bit of a sleeper agent for airborne moisture....
....MUCH MORE
And via the National Center for Biotechnology Information, June 1:
The use of aspirated consonants during speech may increase the transmission of COVID-19
More fricatives, but not sibilants.
A visual example:
📺 A theory on why Japan was able to contain the coronavirus outbreak... according to TBS pic.twitter.com/9d0cIxvS1X
— Kurumi Mori (@rumireports) May 21, 2020
Or, as Rex Harrison said about Julie Andrews:
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique
If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do
Why, you might be selling flowers, too.
Actually dropped H's are less explosive with the spittle.
