Have you ever wondered why we say “this” when pointing at something close and “that” when pointing at something far away?
Well, scientists were curious too!
A big study was done by the University of East Anglia and they found something cool: almost every language in the world has words like “this” and “that.”
They looked at how over 1,000 people from different countries and speaking 29 different languages used these kinds of words.
Before this study, some people thought that speakers of different languages might think in very different ways about things that are close or far.
But this new research found that isn’t true. No matter the language, people use words like “this” or “that” based on whether they can reach the thing they’re talking about or not.
The main person leading this study, Prof Kenny Coventry, said they wanted to understand more about the oldest words we know of—words like “this” and “that.”
The big team of 45 researchers studied lots of languages, like English, Spanish, Norwegian, and even some less common ones like Tzeltal and Telugu. They asked more than 1,000 people to describe where things were using words in their language.
The fun part? They found out that every language they looked at had a word for things close by (like “this”) and a word for things far away (like “that”).
Prof Coventry explained, “In every language we checked, people had a word for stuff they can touch or reach and another word for stuff that’s too far away.” He thinks this might be because these words are so old and basic to humans, maybe from the time when our ancient ancestors were first starting to talk.
This whole study wasn’t just done by one university. Lots of smart people from universities in Germany, Norway, Denmark, the U.S., and many other places helped out.
So, the next time you say “this” or “that,” remember that people all around the world, no matter their language, are doing the same thing. It’s like a little connection we all share!
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