We begin by thanking the respondents for their thoughtful comments and insightful leads. The overall impression we are left with by this exchange is one of progress, even if no consensus remains about the particular hypothesis we raise. To date, there has been a failure to seriously engage with the possibility that humans might adapt their communication to ecological factors. In these exchanges, we see signs of serious engagement with that possibility. Most respondents expressed agreement with the notion that our central premise—that language is ecologically adaptive—requires further exploration and may in fact be operative. We are pleased to see this shift in discourse, and to witness a heightening appreciation of possible ecological constraints on language evolution. It is that shift in discourse that represents progress in our view. Our hope is that future work will continue to explore these issues, paying careful attention to the fact that the human larynx is clearly sensitive to characteristics of ambient air. More generally, we think this exchange is indicative of the growing realization that inquiries into language development must consider potential external factors (see Dediu 2015). Having said that, much debate remains about our more specific hypothesis vis-a-vis tonality and desiccation. Is desiccation directly implicated in the global distribution of complex tonality? The best answer anyone can offer at this point, we think, is ‘quite possibly’. Our distributional data remain highly suggestive but not conclusive (nor could they be), and the skeptical points raised in the comments are insightful but not conclusive either. (As we will demonstrate below.) Some of those comments do hint that the relationship between climate and tone might be indirect, and that more factors must be considered for the direct relationship we hypothesize to be more convincing. As we noted in our target piece, new kinds of …

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回应：气候和语言：话语是否发生了变化？

我们首先感谢受访者深思熟虑的评论和有见地的线索。这种交流给我们留下的总体印象是一种进步，即使对我们提出的特定假设没有达成共识。迄今为止，人们未能认真考虑人类可能使他们的交流适应生态因素的可能性。在这些交流中，我们看到了认真对待这种可能性的迹象。大多数受访者表示同意我们的中心前提——语言具有生态适应性——需要进一步探索并且实际上可能有效的观点。我们很高兴看到这种话语的转变，并见证了对语言进化可能存在的生态约束的高度理解。在我们看来，这种话语转变代表了进步。我们希望未来的工作将继续探索这些问题，并密切关注人类喉部对环境空气特征明显敏感的事实。更一般地说，我们认为这种交流表明人们越来越意识到对语言发展的调查必须考虑潜在的外部因素（见 Dediu 2015）。话虽如此，关于我们关于音调和干燥的更具体假设仍有很多争论。干燥是否直接与复杂音调的全球分布有关？我们认为，此时任何人都可以提供的最佳答案是“很有可能”。我们的分布数据仍然具有高度启发性，但不是决定性的（也不可能是），评论中提出的怀疑观点很有见地，但也不是决定性的。（正如我们将在下面演示的那样。) 其中一些评论确实暗示气候和语气之间的关系可能是间接的，必须考虑更多因素才能使我们假设的直接关系更有说服力。正如我们在目标文章中所指出的，新种类的……