Argentine researchers studied a regional slang that reverses the order of word syllables or letters. Their findings give insight into our natural ability to engage in wordplay
In 2020 Adolfo García, a neurolinguist at Argentina’s University of San Andrés, had a chance encounter with a photographer who amused his models by chattering to them backward—the Spanish word casa became “asac,” for instance. Upon learning that the photographer had been fluent in “backward speech” since childhood and was capable of holding a conversation entirely in reverse, García set out to study the phenomenon.
Around the La Plata River estuary, which abuts the province of Buenos Aires and some parts of southern Uruguay, the language of word inversion belongs to a type of slang called lunfardo, which is the product of immigrant languages from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This linguistic marvel uses only letters or syllables swapped from back to front. In lunfardo, the word vesre represents the Spanish word for “reverse”—revés—with its syllables pronounced backward.
Word reversals are possible in languages such as Spanish, Basque or some Mayan languages, in which there is a direct one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. For instance, Spanish has five vowels, and each one has a distinct sound that remains consistent across all words. In contrast, English, considered an “opaque” language, has 12 different sounds for these same five vowels.
The Ig Nobel–winning researchers’ prize consisted of an out-of-circulation Zimbabwean banknote and a PDF that could be printed out and folded to form a miniature cola box. The backward speakers in their study possessed an “extraordinary ability” to quickly reverse words , sentences and texts. These individuals could rearrange sounds but preserve a word’s identity effortlessly, García and Torres Prioris’s team found. Instead of saying plata , for example, they said atalp.
Neuroimaging revealed that backward speakers had more gray matter volume and connections among neurons, not only in regions associated with phoneme processing but also in other brain areas involved in semantic processes, certain visual functions and cognitive control. Backward speech therefore brings into play cognitive mechanisms beyond classical language circuits.
“Neuroimaging studies have revealed that the specific brain regions involved can vary among individuals, underscoring the plasticity of the human brain in adapting to exceptional linguistic abilities,” she adds. The most significant contribution of this study, Castelló says, is that it offering insights that enhance understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in processing sounds and constructing words.
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