Every distinguishing feature of a language—its sounds, cadences, and grammatical patterns—was shaped over time as each language developed. Volume is no exception. In new research, scientists analyzed around 346,000 words from about 5,000 languages and dialects and calculated each language’s average “sonority.” Sonority is a measure that can partially be understood as loudness, though it also includes how resonant a word is. For example, a word with lots of vowels like “mouth” has a bigger and rounder sound that uses more space in the mouth and is therefore more sonorous…
