Human evolution has been marked by significant changes in diet, anatomy and language. One of the less obvious, but highly impactful, effects has been the relationship between the transition to a softer diet, the development of the overbite and the emergence of new sounds in human languages.
Thanks to the advent of agriculture and the consumption of softer foods, our ancestors developed an overbite… and, as a side effect, they began to pronounce sounds like “f” and “v” more easily.
What does food have to do with language?
To understand this, we have to go back to the time when humans lived as hunter-gatherers. Back then, the diet was very different: tough meat, fibrous roots, nuts… Everything required a good deal of chewing. This activity put a lot of pressure on the growing jaw, causing it to grow larger and stronger. As a result, the upper and lower teeth lined up directly in edge-to-edge contact.
But when our ancestors began farming and processing food—grinding grains into flour, cooking food more, and relying less on raw foods—their jaws stopped receiving as much pressure. This led to their retaining a slight overbite, a characteristic that is normal in children but soon disappeared in adulthood.
This structural change in the mouth had an unexpected consequence: it made it easier to pronounce labiodental sounds—those that are produced by resting the upper teeth on the lower lip, such as “f” and “v.”
How do we know?
A group of researchers decided to test this theory. First, they used computer models to see if an overbite actually made it easier to pronounce labiodentals. The result was clear: With an overbite, making these sounds required 29% less effort.
They then analyzed hundreds of languages around the world and found that hunter-gatherer languages had only a quarter of the labiodentals of agricultural languages. Finally, they studied how these consonants spread over time and concluded that their spread coincided with the spread of agriculture and food processing.
Speaking better, but with crowded teeth?
But it wasn't all positive. While we gained new sounds, our new jaw structure brought us some problems. With smaller jaws, many humans began to experience dental problems such as crowding, cavities, and impacted wisdom teeth.
In other words, our ability to say words with “f” and “v” came at a cost to us: narrower mouths and more trips to the dentist.
This study demonstrates something fascinating: the way we live influences our biology, and that, in turn, impacts the way we speak. What we eat, how we use our mouths, and cultural changes continue to shape the languages we speak today, proving that language is a dynamic phenomenon that continues to evolve over time.
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