The April 25th issue of New Scientist has an article discussing a computer that can read from a speaker’s lips what language he/she is speaking. This reminded me of something I came across stating that people in southern Russia had a characteristic face shape that was thought to be due to the heavy bread that was their staple – the intense and persistent chewing required, bulked up certain face muscles. I would suggest that what is true for chewing could well be true for speaking – that one language will use certain facial muscles more than another. The consequence would then be that a French speaker would tend towards a particular facial configuration – a speaker of Mandarin Chinese would tend to another… so that the language you speak determines, to some extent, what your face looks like…