Study: All Languages around the World Have Words for ‘This’ and ‘That’
Coventry et al. show that speakers of all tested languages use spatial demonstratives as a function of being able to reach or act on an object being referred to.
https://www.sci.news/othersciences/linguistics/spatial-demonstratives-12414.html #linguistics #language #this #that #demonstratives
@Nonog
That's a, uh, awfully inflated headline.
"All Languages around the World".
Then says they studied 29 languages total, with a map showing that about 19 of those were European and thus mostly share the same Proto-Indo-European root. And that virtually no languages were included from Africa, South America, or Oceania, where there are roughly a zillion completely unrelated tribal language families.