ABSTRACT
It might seem odd to raise the question of linguistic icomcity - the diagram-like or mimetic attributes of language - in the context of a work on landscape and culture. But I hope to show that my choice of subject-matter is not as arbitrary as it might appear, and that there may be, indeed, an intimate relationship between the cultural factors shaping the phonology of certain natural languages, and the particularities of the landscape setting within which the speakers of these languages live. My thesis is that people who live in dense, unbroken jungle, such as the New Guinean peoples I shall discuss, speak languages that are unusually rich in phonological iconisms, and that this association between forest habitats and iconic languages can be theoretically accounted for. Phonological iconisms are instances in which there are interpretable relationships between speech sounds or articulatory 'gestures', and the semantic meanings conveyed by words in speech.
