The Development of Canonical Proportion as a Function of Community, Multilingualism, and Target Language's Syllable Complexity

Tey, Kai Jia; Walker, Sarah; Seidl, Amanda; Scaff, Camila; Peurey, Loann; Kelleher, Bridgette L.; Havard, William; Hamrick, Lisa; Grosjean, Pauline; Cychosz, Margaret; Colleran, Heidi; Casillas, Marisa; Bergelson, Elika; Hitczenko, Kasia; Cristia, Alejandrina

doi:10.6082/s99fb-9b224

Published February 19, 2026 | Version v1

Journal article Open

The Development of Canonical Proportion as a Function of Community, Multilingualism, and Target Language's Syllable Complexity

1. Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et de Psycholinguistique, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, Paris
2. University of New South Wales
3. University of Delaware
4. Institute of Evolutionary Medicine
5. Purdue University
6. University of Orléans
7. University of South Carolina
8. University of California Los Angeles
9. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
10. University of Chicago
11. Harvard University
12. The George Washington University
13. Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et de Psycholinguistique

This study investigates the development of canonical proportion (CP), an indicator of speech development, across diverse language and environmental contexts. Using the Speech Maturity Dataset (SMD) comprising 366 children, aged 0;2–6;4, across 10 different languages and cultures, we explore the influence of multilingual exposure, language syllable complexity, and community type (industrialised, non-industrialised) on CP. We find that monolingual children display higher CP measures than their multilingual peers. In addition, CP is higher for children learning languages with simple syllable complexity than those with more complex syllables. We also find no significant differences in the CP trajectory of children from industrialised versus non-industrialised communities. Integrating these findings in the broader literature, we highlight the importance of diversifying participant samples to capture the complex relationship between language exposure, social environment, and language development.

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