ABSTRACT
Why are there about 7,000 languages distributed the way they are and differing in the way they do? Does the environment inhabited by the speakers (with its climate, geography, ecology) have anything to do with the various sounds used by various languages? How about the anatomy of the vocal tract of the speakers? We argue here that all of these matter and that we are in the middle of a change in how such non-linguistic factors are seen and studied, ultimately re-embodying and re-rooting language in the world.
