I’ve been having a peek at the Science Codex, and come across this cluster of articles.

Gesturing while talking helps change your thoughts

New research says words, gestures translated by same brain regions

2 sides of the same coin: Speech and gesture mutually interact to enhance comprehension

Unlike most British people, I tend to gesture a lot when I’m speaking.  This reminds me of my first scientific conference abroad, held in Monaco in 1969.  Many groups tended to cluster together, but I found myself with a group of assorted Continental Europeans walking in town in the evening to find a restaurant.  One of them remarked that I was so like an Italian, the way I waved my arms when speaking.

One of this ad hoc group was from the Netherlands.  He told us how, in Dutch, the trigraph “sch” is pronounced “s-χ” (the latter as is Scottish ‘loch’, ye ken!).  Most Germans found this consonant cluster very difficult to pronounce, so it was a good way of catching out spies during WW2.  It reminds me of the following incident in the history of Israel in the times of the Judges.

12, 4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.

5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, art thou an Ephraimite? If he say Nay;

6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

The Story of the Shibboleth from the Words in English public website (Rice University, Texas)

From the same cluster, another Hebraic connection:

The cognitive link between weight and importance

The Semitic triliteral K-B-D is has a root meaning of “heavy” or “important”, and in the Tanach (Hebrew Old Testament) it is often used to express God’s glory.  Glory as brilliance seems to be more a Greek idea, found in the New Testament.

It’s interesting how studies in psychology (media release) bear (!) out a connection noted perhaps a century ago by philologists.