When Teepee Becomes Peepee

My nibling is producing real, actual words! …mostly. Like most toddlers, the quality of production leaves something to be desired. Teepee, for example, comes out more like “peepee,” and coffee sounds more like “cocky.”

Obviously, the parents are having a great time, and I’m dusting off my background in phonology to analyze every single word they say.

It’s a fairly common stage in language development: children go through phases where they consistently replace the consonants in a word (the “target form”) with one from elsewhere in the word. This practice is called consonant harmony, and it was very intriguing for linguists in the 90s because it rarely happens in adult languages, except when the consonants are right next to each other (e.g. pronouncing input as “imput”). On the other hand, vowel harmony — where all the vowels in a word become the same — is a pretty common process across the world’s languages, even when the target vowels are separated by one or more consonants.

This observation is a Big Deal for linguists who believe that child language never deviates from the possible permutations seen in adult language. One of the key ideas in generative grammar is that, even if children are making lots of mistakes as they acquire their language, the grammatical choices they are making actually correspond to completely valid possibilities in some other language. A kid who says “Want cookie” is not following the rules of English (which requires a subject), but is perfectly fine in Spanish.

So, if a child says “peepee” instead of teepee, and that kind of change doesn’t happen in adult languages, that’s pretty dang interesting.

What’s going well

They have successfully identified and produced lots of important phonetic features: they know that the /p/ and /t/ sounds are both produced without vibrating the vocal cords; they know that /p/ and /t/ should be followed by a small puff of air (= aspiration) when they appear at the beginning of a word; and they know that both of these sounds are the result of fully preventing air from escaping the lungs for a split second (= stop consonants), as opposed to only partially limiting airflow as you would in a sound like /f/.

In fact, the only difference between /p/ and /t/ is that one is produced on the lips, while the other is produced with the tongue behind the teeth.

For a long time, everyone more or less assumed that these supposed speech errors were random, the result of children being unable to perceive or produce the subtle distinctions between sounds of the same category (i.e. stops).

However, as I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, it’s not true that babies can’t hear the differences between sounds. They’re actually really good at it. More counterevidence comes from the “fis” phenomenon, which was a study in the 60s where researchers showed a toy fish to a child who consistently “fis” instead of fish. When they asked him, “Is this a fis?” the child answered no, rejecting the adult’s mispronunciation. This is further evidence that the ability to perceive sounds precedes the ability to produce them.

This probably means that whatever goes awry happens somewhere in the production process: that is, the child has a mental representation of the word teepee in their head, but something gets jumbled up when they try to coordinate all the muscles needed to produce the word.

What’s interesting, though, is that there seem to be fairly consistent rules governing child consonant harmony. The fact that these rules exist is a testament to just how much children already know about the language(s) spoken around them.

Why doesn’t “teepee” end up as “teetee?”

Let’s take a quick dive into linguistic theory. Optimality Theory, proposed by Prince and Smolensky in the early 90s, is used in phonology to explain why certain sound alterations occur in a given context. The idea is that that there are underlying “rules” that everyone has in their heads, ranked in order of importance. Higher-ranked rules cannot be broken, whereas lower-ranked rules can be broken if there is no other choice. The ultimate goal: produce a word that is as close to the representation in your head as possible.

Lots of these rules target not just one sound, but a group of sounds that share a feature (such as place of articulation). When we group the consonants in question according to where they are produced, then we have the following categories.

Name	Place of articulation	Stop consonants
Labials	The lips	p, b, (m)
Coronals	The tip of the tongue	t, d, (n)
Velars	The velar ridge	k, g

An example of a rule that contributes to consonant harmony could be something like “Preserve all labials in the target word.” When a child then cannot stay true to the adult form of the word (for whatever reason), then they might refer back to the hierarchy of rules to decide which consonants they should prioritize.

Once they decide which segments can be changed and which ones have to stay the same, they can transform the word in some way that makes it easier to produce. This is a topic that I looked at for my Master’s thesis, so I can tell you firsthand that lots of children prefer to simply omit the challenging sound(s) altogether. This is why spot might become “pot,” or green might become “geen.”

Another option, of course, is to repeat a sound that is already available to you, especially if they share some phonetic features with the sound you want to (but can’t) produce. This is where consonant harmony may occur.

Since kids show different orders of preference for labials, coronals, and velars at this stage, the segment they tend to preserve can show us which consonant types they find most important (or maybe just easier to pronounce). This, in turn, can give us a hint about the ranking of rules in their head at any given stage. It’s time to analyze some data!

Looking back at “peepee,” it seems like labial consonants (/p, b, m/) outrank coronals (/t, d/), because the /p/ sound is what remains. Based on this information, we can make some predictions about how my nibling would pronounce other words at this stage:

• Potty > “poppy”
• Table > “babu” (/l/ is a whole other can of worms, so just go with me on this)
• Tuba > “buba”
• Boot > “boop” or “boo,” depending on whether deletion or assimilation is preferred at the end of a word

Pesky vowels

Now we have our first set of predictions, but they might need to be adjusted as we get more info. Where do velars (/k, g/) rank in comparison to labials and coronals?

Again, we can determine the order of priority based on how certain words are pronounced. Luckily, said nibling is in the middle of a vocabulary explosion and has given us two pieces of data to work with:

• Doggy > “goggy”
• Digger > “dadu”

Uhh… what gives?! In doggy, the /g/ stays, but in digger, the /d/ stays! There is no preference — it’s all just random after all!

This is the fun of analyzing linguistic data: just when you think you have a working hypothesis, something comes along to throw you off course.

You might be happy (or disappointed, if you were rooting against me) to know that there is a potential explanation for these two data points, and it has to do with the phonetic environment — that is, the other sounds that are occurring around the consonants in question. In our case, I suspect the first vowel is the culprit.

The /o/ in doggy is produced toward the back of the mouth, quite close to the velar ridge. On the other hand, the /i/ in digger (or the /æ/ in “dadu”) is articulated toward the front of the mouth. So, it seems plausible that in words featuring a front vowel like /i/, the coronal sound might be preserved, whereas in words containing a back vowel like /o/, the velar sound wins out. Let’s make some more predictions based on this hypothesis:

• Kitty > “titty” (…it’s what the science dictates, okay?)
• Taco > “kako” (according to American English vowels)
• Gouda > “duda”

Since we only have, like, three words to work with at the moment, it’s hard to say for certain whether the vowels would also have an impact on consonant harmony in words containing a labial consonant. If the vowel has no impact, then we can assume that the labials would win out over velars. If the vowel does have an effect, then we can assume that front vowels would trigger labials, while back vowels would trigger velars.

A few more predictions:

• Piggy > “pibby”
• Copper > “kako”
• Bugle > “bugu”
• Baggy > “babby”

As an aside, it’s very hard to come up with words that a baby might know that also have a (roughly) CVCV structure. So please excuse the ridiculous examples above.

How is this useful?

Sometimes it’s just nice to be reminded that your child is actually supremely intelligent and already pretty adept at this “language” thing. They’ve laid a foundation in their native language(s) and know how it should sound, the implementation is the only problem.

You can also start to appreciate the steps that they take on their unique language journey. Instead of just waking up one day as a fully competent communicator, they make small strides every day that all eventually add up to adult competence. It’s cool to observe the process.

Or maybe you’re just like me and you love finding patterns in everything and solving puzzles. That’s also a perfectly good reason to learn anything. If you’re bored with the monotony of childcare one day, you can always whip out a notebook and start trying to figure out the patterns in their speech errors.

Until next time!

Why can’t we “hear” sounds from another language?

You’ve been learning a language for months, you’ve built up a pretty decent vocabulary, but there are just some words that cause you trouble almost any time you use them. UGH.

Unfortunately and ironically, for my parents, one of these words was part of our address in China. A decade of struggles later, nearly half the time we got in a taxi, my dad would make his best attempt and the following conversation would ensue:

• Dad: “Xiù yáng lù.”
• Driver (confused): “Xiù yáng lù?”
• Dad: “Duì. Xiù yáng lù.”
• Driver: “There’s no such thing as xìu yáng lù.”
• Mom: “Xiù yáng lù.”
• Driver (perplexed): “Eh??????”
• Me: “It’s xìu yán lù.”
• Driver: “Oooooh, okay!”
• Dad: “THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I SAID.”

Various taxi drivers and I tried to clue them in over the years, but alas — the psychology of language was against them.

Why oh why can’t we hear sounds that native speakers can distinguish easily? It all comes down to our unique neuropsychology.

You see, humans are capable of something called categorical perception, which basically means that we can tell when two things belong to the same category, even if they aren’t exactly the same. Two leaves may not look, feel, or smell identical, but we can examine each one and conclude that they are both, indeed, leaves. Categorical perception allows us (and a selection of other animals including brides and chinchillas) to focus on the features that make them similar, and ignore the differences.

Categorical perception is important for perceiving (and interpreting) the sounds of oral language and the handshapes/locations of signed language. When you say “meow” and I say “meow,” for instance, we will not sound completely identical. One of us might have a higher or lower voice; you might produce the e vowel for just a millisecond longer; or I might raise my intonation at the end to make it a question: “meow?” Although we can hear all of those differences, we also know that they are not important for determining whether the same word (and thus, meaning) is intended. We, as adult English speakers, know that both of our productions of “meow” are equally valid instances of the word that means the sound a cat makes.

On the other hand, there’s no reason that someone who has very little experience with spoken language (i.e., a baby) would assume that every little pronunciation difference doesn’t constitute an entirely new word. If they hear me say “Meow!” and “Meow?” with different intonations, how do they know those aren’t two completely different words?

We are born with the ability to perceive every sound used by oral language, and to distinguish even between sounds that are acoustically very similar. A famous study from the 70s showed that 4-month-old infants exposed only to English can still perceive the difference between three Korean consonants which English-speaking adults usually cannot distinguish. However, by 8 months old, they lose that ability. This is a result of certain neurological and psychological processes that help us focus in on the special features of the language(s) that are used around us — the development of categorical perception.

Categorical perception allows us to draw boundaries along a continuum to establish discrete categories. Vowels are a good example of such a continuum in language. They are essentially produced by opening your mouth and vibrating your vocal cords, using the tensing of your tongue and lips to alter the sound that comes out. The difference between /i/ and /e/ depends only on which part of the tongue is tensed; this fact means that you can switch back and forth between the two sounds in a single breath, in one continuous sound. In fact, all the vowels in oral language can be produced in a single breath, simply by varying the position of your tongue and lips. The same cannot be said of consonants.

I’ll pause here to let you test all that out.

Babies gradually learn to perceive vowels and consonants categorically, meaning that they learn to tolerate variations and figure out where to establish a barrier between sounds like /i/ and /e/. Different languages might have slightly different barriers, even between similar-sounding vowels. Other languages might distinguish sounds that don’t exist in English at all, like a vowel between /i/ and /u/. As a baby, your brain learns to pay attention to acoustic signals (sound waves, frequencies, etc.) that are important for determining whether a sound is /e/ or /i/ — in other words, to take something continuous like an acoustic signal and assign it to discrete categories.

Returning to my parents’ Mandarin conundrum, the problem was as follows: Mandarin has a vowel whose acoustic features are a mixture of the English /a/ in “father” and /e/ as in “egg.” I can hear the difference clear as day, but unfortunately, my parents’ brains long ago decided that they would perceive vowels only according to the boundaries that are relevant for English. The acoustic information that distinguishes this vowel in Mandarin is misinterpreted as /a/ because their brain does not have a better category to assign it to.

As a non-linguistic example, imagine you have never seen a butterfly (or any other flying insect) before. You are tasked with sorting pictures of bugs and birds into their respective categories. It’s pretty straightforward until you encounter the butterfly, and then suddenly it’s not. On one hand, this creature has more than 2 legs, just like the other bugs you’ve seen thus far. On the other hand, it also has wings — that isn’t very bug-like, in your experience. You absolutely have to sort these cards, and you cannot create a new category. What do you do?

(It has just occurred to me that this is the exact problem faced by biologists when they first discovered the platypus, which is an egg-laying mammal, so there’s another example for your records.)

When you learn a new language as an adult, you don’t start from scratch. You approach it with years of experience using, interpreting, and categorizing the components of another language. Unfortunately, this can make for some pretty strong biases. Even if you consciously know that this is not your native language, your subconscious is playing a completely different game, using the tools it has honed for the past however-many years of your life. This can make it very different for you to perceive and produce sounds that do not exist in your native language.

Some studies have shown that explicit training on the phonetic differences between non-native sounds can help adult learners perceive and produce them, but the results tend to vary across language pairs, sounds, learner types, and individuals.

Perhaps one day we’ll be able to tap into the mechanisms that babies use to master their native language(s). Until then, though, try to comfort yourself with the fact that the same neurological processes that make you a poor Mandarin speaker also made you an excellent English speaker — or vice versa.

A Phonology of Simlish

This may in fact be the most pointless research I’ve ever conducted, but sometimes you just have to carpe diem and do pointless things instead of working on your real research.

If you have never and will never play The Sims (or you have no interest whatsoever in phonology), then this is not the post for you. That said, almost everybody I know has at least dabbled in the game once in their lives, and have at least commented in passing on the features of the Sims’ language. A very brief overview, just in case you forgot: in The Sims, you are essentially God (or your omnipotent deity of choice), creating and controlling the lives of little virtual people who live in an idealized version of suburban America. Some people play exclusively to build houses, others to live out their wildest dreams, and still others to release their inner psychopath. Regardless of the reason you play, it is more than likely that in your time as a Simmer, you’ve encountered the fictional language used in the game, known as Simlish.

Although it doesn’t actually have a complete syntax or lexicon, Simlish is still an impressive feat and an ode to the game’s creator’s attention to detail. According to a recently-published article on the evolution of Simlish, it was originally devised by the voice actors hired to provide the male and female vocalizations for the original edition of The Sims, released in 2000. The creator, Will Wright, had originally envisioned a ‘language’ that was a hodgepodge of features from languages such as Navajo, Ukrainian, and Latin; eventually, this idea was scrapped in favor of the actors’ ad-libbing using gibberish syllables that (mostly) conformed to English phonetics and phonotactics.

Simlish is not intended to be a ‘learnable’ language; its purpose is to make the game accessible for players around the world, regardless of their mother tongue. It allows players to superimpose their own details onto their Sims’ conversations and outbursts, resulting in a much more customizable and imaginative storyline than if the characters spoke a real language. However, Simlish does appear to follow a number of rules as far as its pronunciation is concerned, and that is what I’ve spent the better part of my evening looking at in detail.

The data for this post is taken from the following sources:

• The Simlish Dictionary
• Youtube videos (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• My own, er, field research

Phonemic Inventories

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d		k g
Nasal	m		n		ŋ
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ		h
Lateral			l
Approximant			r
Glides	w			j
Affricate			t͡ɕ	tʃ dʒ

The consonant inventory of Simlish. In keeping with IPA tradition, voiceless phonemes are on the left and voiced on the right. All nasals are voiced.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ɪ		u
Close-Mid	e	ǝ	o
Open-Mid	æ		ʌ ɔ
Open			ɑ

The vowel inventory of Simlish. Vowels to the left are unrounded.

If you’re at all familiar with the phonemes of English, you’ll probably notice several similarities. Unsurprisingly, considering both the original voice actors were American, the phonology of Simlish bares a striking resemblance to Mainstream American English. It is worth noting, however, that the Simlish in the original Sims game also sounds significantly different than later iterations – for example, in the first minute of this video, you can hear a flap/trill, a /ʒ/, a /ɣ/, and a /t/ that more closely resembles the Spanish /t/ than its English counterpart. Sometimes I suspect a bit of retroflex on some of the plosives, but it’s hard to say for sure. Regardless, this is an artificial example of the influence that language contact can have on sound shifts over time: in the past 20 years, Simlish phonology has taken on more English-like features as a result of extended contact with the English-speaking world, especially since most of its ‘users’ (i.e. actors and writers) are native English speakers.

Next, we’ll break down some of the phonotactics (= rules governing how individual phonemes are combined) of Simlish.

Phonotactics

• The most complex syllable is (C)(C)V(C)(C)
• Permissible simple onsets: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /f/, /v/, /j/, /w/, /r/, /l/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /t͡ɕ/, /dʒ/, /tʃ/
• Permissible simple codas: /l/, /m/, /r/, /g/, /f/, /b/, /t/, /ʃ/, /ŋ/, /k/, /r/, /s/
• Permissible complex onsets: /bl/, /pl/, /sp/, /kl/, /gl/, /mj/, /sk/, /fl/, /fw/, /tw/, /bw/, /mw/,
• Permissible complex codas: /mg/, /nd/, /ps/, /bz/, /kt/, /lt/
• Allows syllabic /r/ e.g. [grb]
• Primary stress tends to fall on the last syllable
• Some of the canonical vowels are diphthongized similar to MAE: /e/ becomes [eɪ], and /o/ becomes /oʊ/ in an open syllable
• Other diphthongs include /aɪ/ (as in hi) and /au/ (how)
• /v/ sometimes seems to be in free variation with /b/, e.g. /’bʌdiʃ/ thank you can also be pronounced /’vʌdiʃ/
• Word-initial voiceless plosives (/p/, /t/, and /k/) are aspirated
• Word-final nasal + consonant clusters may delete the second consonant
• Light and dark /l/ are in complimentary distribution with one another, like in MAE
• Intervocalic /t/ and /d/ may become flaps, like in MAE

Comparison to English

Although the influence of American English on Simlish phonology is extremely evident, there are some minor differences between the two. First, Simlish lacks dental phonemes, particularly /θ/ and /δ/ (sounds at the beginning of thin and the, respectively) which are prevalent in many dialects of English. Simlish is also more conservative when it comes to syllable structure: English permits up to three sequential consonants in the onset of a word (e.g. strong) and four or five in the coda (e.g. sixths /siksθs/ or angsts /æŋksts/, depending on dialect); on the other hand, Simlish allows a maximum of two consonants in each position. There are some other, more minor differences as well regarding the distribution of phonemes in words/syllables. Simlish allows many, but not all, of the same phonemes in a simple coda as English: the /d/, /l/, and /z/ phonemes are unattested in the data I looked at, although /l/ and /t/ appear together in a complex coda.

Many English speakers have compared Simlish to ‘baby talk’ and, after examining the phonology of the language, the reason becomes clear: Simlish allows plenty of consonant + /w/ clusters that are typically associated with children’s early attempts to produce words containing a consonant + /l/ or /r/ (e.g. /bwu/ for blue), and don’t exist in adult English. It also seems to contain a greater number of words that begin with glides (don’t quote me on that – I haven’t actually run a formal analysis), which may also influence English-speaking listeners to perceive it as infantile.

Conclusion

There is an obvious influence of English phonology and syllable structure on the phonology of Simlish. The Simlish phonemic inventory consists almost exclusively of English vowels and consonants, and many of its rules governing stress assignment and allophonic variation are borrowed directly from English. However, there are some non-trivial differences between the languages: Simlish syllables are maximally CCVCC, whereas English allows up to three consonants in the onset and four/five consonants in the coda of a single syllable. The types of consonant clusters also differ, with Simlish allowing several more C + glide combinations as well as the /mg/ cluster in final position. These rather salient features of Simlish phonology may be to blame for English speakers’ assessment of the language as ‘baby talk.’

Of course, the above assessment has been made on the basis of limited acoustic data and without the input of native Simlish speakers (mostly because they don’t exist). And again, seeing as the language lacks a concrete syntax or morphology, it is rather difficult to postulate underlying forms for the surface forms of words and phrases presented in The Sims – rather, I have operated on the assumption that Simlish is a fully faithful language when it comes to mapping underlying forms onto surface forms. Future researchers of the language would do well to analyze sample utterances using a parsing software such as Praat, or otherwise contact potential informants for deeper insights as to its structure.

And with that, I’m off to finish some reading for my dissertation. Dag dag!

Why don’t we have a universal name?

The other night my sister was visiting and she asked me this question. After a day spent galavanting around the city, I was tired and hardly in the mood for an intellectual discussion, so I mumbled something about phonemic inventories before getting back to my halfhearted scrolling. Sorry sis. Now, I’m invigorated with the thrill of learning and want to address it properly, so I can send her this (I anticipate good-sized) blog post and she can roll her eyes but nevertheless be informed.

The topic arose after I mentioned earlier that day that the LSA (and I’m sure many other organizations) in recent years have made public calls for linguists, particularly semanticists and syntacticians, to be less white-washed in their example sentences. Not only is it boring, it often reinforces outdated social structures and stereotypes, while failing to acknowledge cultural diversity within societies. For example, I’ve seen the sentence John kissed Mary almost every time the topic of transitivity comes up. Instead of having John kiss Mary, let Mary kiss John! Or better yet, have Yoo-Rim kiss Gisella! Crazier still, you could have no one kiss anyone, because shockingly kiss is not the only transitive verb. You get the point.

In response to this issue, naturally, she suggested an alternative: Why don’t we have just a universal name that is equally common in every language and serves as a generic placeholder in situations like the above? I’ll admit, it’s an interesting thought. As you might expect, though, names are a rather complicated beast, with a whole lot of nuance surrounding their evolution and use. The answer to this also depends a lot on what exactly makes a name “universal.” Is it the sound, or the content? For the sake of argument, my assumption is that it needs to be a combination of both, so it would be only right to look at each one in turn.

As far as sociolinguistics go, names tend to reflect a society’s values, which as we know tend to vary quite a bit across cultures. For example, many contemporary European names are Biblical in origin, which in turn come from Classical Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and possibly Latin words/phrases. The name Abigail, for example, originates from Hebrew words av ‘father’ and gil ‘joy,’ which over the years and through borrowings into other languages (like English), have slightly warped to give us its contemporary pronunciation. Abigail is a common name in many Christianity-based societies, but outside of its Biblical sense, it doesn’t necessarily carry much meaning on its own. In non-Christian/Semitic societies, such a name would likely have never been introduced. That said, we can still see the way that religion influences other cultures’ naming practices: many Hindu parents name their children after specific deities in their religion, while Muslims may opt for names found in the Quran. Chinese naming customs varied across dynasties and rulers, but generally omit religious references in favor of other types of symbolism. In fact at many points in history, it was considered taboo to name your children after important figures, particularly the emperor, who was considered a religious figure in an of himself.

There are, of course, plenty of non-religious names that seem to appeal to a more widespread symbolism: the natural world. English has names like Autumn and Daisy, while Spanish uses Luz (‘light’) and Margarita (‘daisy’), and Chinese uses 木兰 Mulan (‘wood/tree’ and ‘orchid’, respectively). Humans have always been enthralled by nature, so it isn’t particularly surprising that many cultures independently chose to honor natural phenomena in this way. So although the names themselves vary considerably across societies, many of the underlying motivations remain the same. The problem, of course, is that the language spoken by the community dictates how the same concept (e.g. ‘daisy’) is expressed linguistically. So, unless everyone were to speak a single language, it would be almost impossible to establish a universal way of expressing these common symbols, even if the underlying reference is the same.

Moving onto the phonetic side of things, there are two an additional obstacles to establishing a universal naming practice: phonemic inventories, or the different sounds used in a given language, and permitted syllable structures. With regard to the latter, this greatly constrains our possibilities because many languages do not allow consonants at the end of a syllable (V[owel]C[onsonant] structure) or clusters of consonants within the same syllable. In order to be universally pronounceable, we would therefore need said name to be CV(CV) structured, or maybe VCV, where C adjoins to the second syllable rather than the first. Now it’s time to figure out what sounds we can plug into that formula, which brings us to phonemic inventories.

You may have guessed by now that we would be hard-pressed to find a consonant present in every single language. Even frequently-occurring consonants can be articulated slightly differently in different languages, which might cause perceptive issues across speakers and societies. However, as far as we know, all languages contain stop consonants, so this would be a good place to start narrowing down our options. Voiceless stops (e.g. /p, t, k/) are also more prevalent than voiced stops (e.g. /b, d, g/) so we should probably choose one of those for our best chance at universality. Now, we have 3 candidates: /p/, /t/, and /k/. One of these, /t/, is a coronal consonant, which I know doesn’t exist in a dialect of Mekeo, and is therefore not universal. Between /p/ and /k/, I would hazard a guess that /p/ is more common crosslinguistically, but I don’t actually have any data to support that, so let’s say for the sake of argument that either of these could be a candidate. We would still run into problems when it comes to pronunciation, as English has a rule that requires voiceless stops at the beginning of a word to be aspirated, meaning a puff of air immediately proceeds the consonant itself. Meanwhile, some other languages only contrast their consonants for aspirated/non-aspirated. On the other hand, other languages don’t have aspiration at all, so again we encounter a conflict between different linguistic systems. Suffice it to say, there probably isn’t a consonant that, strictly speaking, could be used in a “universal” name, at least in the sense that it would be produced and perceived in the same way by all speakers.

As far as vowels are concerned, I think /a/ (as in father) is the most common, but again it may be realized differently crosslinguistically, especially for languages that don’t have as many vowels and tolerate more ‘variation’ in their pronunciation (this idea, which I’m vastly oversimplifying, is called categorical perception, but if anyone is interested I would recommend checking out one of the many studies that have been conducted on the perceptive abilities of second language learners for vowels that do and don’t exist in their L1). Other candidates that come to mind are /i/ and /u/, but again I’m not sure these exist in every language in the same way as English.

Anyway, all that being said, we could probably come up with a couple of “universal names” that consist only of one vowel each, but they’re pretty boring and lack cultural relevance, so I can’t imagine anyone actually using them. Not only that, but this whole hypothetical hasn’t even touched on an entire family of languages: sign languages, which obviously don’t use vowels or consonants in their structures. All in all, from my perspective, a universal name remains unattainable for the time being.

So, dear sister, there’s your not-at-all-succinct answer. We don’t have universal names because we don’t have a universal language.