This article examines the relationship between sonority and climate. Results suggest that languages spoken in warmer climates have higher levels of sonority than languages spoken in colder climates.

Munroe and Fought attempt to add new perspective to Ember and Ember's (2007) assertion that certain environmental features help to predict mean sonority levels in speech. This article discusses the other possible elements such as word length that might raise the level of communicative efficiency.

This article adds nuanced findings to the previous generalization that high sonority of the vowel explains its more frequent use in warmer climates. The authors find that “speakers in warm-climate languages make more use of the so-called “sonorant” consonants, that is, consonants with some of the qualities of vowels” (123).

This article presents a reanalysis of a previous study on language rhythm and consonant-vowel syllables by Ember and Ember (2000). Communicative efficiency, climate, baby-holding, literacy, and mean number of syllables per word were all considered as factors in consonant-vowel syllable use.