I know some guys hear are historians and u/AlfredicEnglishRules is an anthropologist. I was listening to a podcast and someone brought up some groups in America use slang predominately because their biology makes English difficult for them. I'm wondering how biology affects language? Is it just an IQ thing, or are there subtle differences in vocal chords? Or is it bullshit?
I can understand cultural differences shaping languages. And I've heard evolutionary differences, like early men having to increase their vocabularies to include dogs in their hunting.
It's bullshit.
Speech capacity doesn't form additively but subtractively. The brain figures out which muscle group connections it needs, and neglects the ones that aren't useful. Babies can make sounds their parents can't; most notably the latin double-R, erre, which many northern europeans lose in childhood.
A native Japanese speaker finds it exceptionally difficult to pronounce b and v differently, but if you raise their child in a native english environment, they'll have no problem with it at all.
Point is, where language is concerned, it's pretty much all nurture. Or more precisely, muscle training.
Yes and,
It's not just muscle, it's perception too. The babies stop attending too, and being able to make distinctions between, foreign sounds that are similar. Eventually it just sounds like all the barbarians are just saying 'barbarbar' or some shit.