Icons can shape languages in ways beyond mere images or onomatopoeia, however. There are areas in which iconic sound representations are non-arbitrary, culturally significant components of human languages. These suggest that icons played a role in the transition to symbols that was so crucial to the invention of language. An example from the language spoken by the isolated Pirahã people indigenous to Amazonas in Brazil, which involves differences between men’s speech and women’s speech, helps to illustrate this.
