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Why Speaking English May Spread More Coronavirus Than Other Languages

SilentPanda

SilentPanda

Member
Nov 6, 2017
13,728
Earth
New research suggests that English speakers put more droplets into the air when they talk, which may make them more likely to spread COVID-19. Since the novel coronavirus is spread by droplets, how spitty a language is may contribute to different rates of the disease. It all comes down to something called aspirated consonants, the sounds we make that spray more droplets of saliva into the air.
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Then the advent of the coronavirus pandemic led to the research finding that not only coughing and sneezing, but simply talking drives aerosolized viruses into the air. That's one of the biggest reasons for the recommendation that everyone wear a mask and stay six feet part. Now it looks like not all talking leads to the same amount of droplets in the air. Instead, it depends on which language the speaker is using.
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One of the first hints that there might be a difference in how viruses spread based on language came from observations made in China. Remarkably, this happened not during the Covid-19 pandemic, but during the first SARS outbreak with the SARS-CoV-1in South China. That virus led to over 8,000 cases were recorded in 26 countries.
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At that time there were far more Japanese tourist than American ones in South China, yet Americans accounted for 70 cases of SARS-CoV-1 and Japan had no cases at all. How could that be? At the time, one explanation by scientists had to do with language. Since the staff of Chinese stores were generally multilingual, they typically spoke to US shoppers in English while they spoke to Japanese tourists in Japanese. And that matters because English is full of aspirated consonants while Japanese has few of them.
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www.forbes.com

Why Speaking English May Spread More Coronavirus Than Some Other Languages

New research suggests that English speakers put more droplets into the air when they talk, which may make them more likely to spread COVID-19.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com

The study

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The use of aspirated consonants during speech may increase the transmission of COVID-19

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Nepenthe

Nepenthe

When the music hits, you feel no pain.
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
20,699
Yet another reason to continue learning Portuguese.
 
nsilvias

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,790
NaturalShrillGalah-size_restricted.gif
 
Van Bur3n

Van Bur3n

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
26,089
Perhaps there is a particular way to prevent the use of words that would perpetuate the prevalence of this disease as it spreads perplexingly.
 
TheMadTitan

TheMadTitan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
27,246
julian said:
Can somebody explain to me the Kojima posts?
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Spoiler for MGS5.

The plot of MGS5 involves using a parasite that's tuned to the vibrational frequency created by vocal chords when speaking the English language to kill the speakers while also spreading parasitic spores to the people nearby in order to infect and kill them, too. The main bad guy had his home ransacked by US internationalism and wanted to remove US superiority by eliminating the language they spread to other cultures to cement that superiority. English speaking spreading the disease is why Kojima was right.
 
leder

leder

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,111
That seems extremely tenuous to me, and the author obviously doesn't have a background in linguistics or either of these languages. Japanese does have aspirated consonants on voiceless stops.
 
Sabretooth

Sabretooth

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,067
India
Before anyone takes this to think that aspirated consonants are a uniquely English thing - they're not. They're found in many world languages. They're prevalent in Indian languages, where they are even considered distinct from unaspirated consonants. I wonder if that does contribute towards India's runaway Covid numbers right now.
 
El Bombastico

El Bombastico

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
36,051
And here I thought it was going to be because Americans (and Brits to a lesser extent) are windbags who never shut up...
 

i like big butts

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,970
Heynongman! said:
Right, parasites. Man the story in that game was real dumb - but the gameplay was unreal
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There's some stuff in the game that's legitimately interesting with regards to cultural imperialism of languages (eg. all programming languages default to English). Its something interesting that isn't really tackled on in any form of media.
 
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