the.com/laughter
the only language every human speaks before learning words, and the only contagious thing you want
means The sound and physical act of expressing amusement, joy, or relief through a series of involuntary vocal bursts.
from From Old English 'hleahtor,' itself rooted in the verb 'hliehhan,' to laugh. The whole family is wonderfully echoic — the word is basically the sound itself, frozen into letters. It has cousins all across the Germanic tongues (German 'Gelächter,' Old Norse 'hlátr'), each one a slightly different transcription of the same noise humans have been making since long before they had grammar to interrupt it.
- baby timeline
- Infants laugh months before they speak
- can't tickle self
- Brain cancels predictable self-touch sensations
- rat giggles
- Tickled rats chirp ultrasonic laughter
- deadly history
- 1962 Tanzania laughter epidemic closed schools
- social glue
- You laugh 30 times more with others
hyena laugh — crocuta crocuta's vocalization sounds like human laughter, used to communicate with its pack in african savannas
kookaburra call — dacelo novaeguineae's call in australia sounds like cackling laughter, earned it the nickname 'laughing jackass'
human gelastic seizure — involuntary laughter from temporal lobe epilepsy, documented in neurology since 1881