Although the summer heat is still lingering, I can now faintly feel the approach of autumn in the mornings and evenings. When the night falls and the noise of the city subsides, I can hear the faint chirping of Suzumushi (a bell-ringing cricket) in the distance. By this time, I often hear the chirping of Kohrogi (a cricket), but I rarely hear the chirping of Suzumushi. It is a rare occurrence, regardless of whether someone’s pet Suzumushi escaped or was released.
When I think of Suzumushi, I am reminded of a passage from the essay “The Sound of Insects” by Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo), who came to Japan in the Meiji period. He wrote, “We Westerners have something to learn from the Japanese, who can fill their hearts with all sorts of gentle and delicate fantasies at the mere sound of  Suzumushi.”
Indeed, it is said that for most non-Japanese people, all sounds other than human voices, including the chirping of insects, the singing of birds, the rustling of trees, the sound of waves, and the sound of wind, are nothing more than noise. There are many interesting studies on this topic. One common point is that Japanese people perceive many sounds other than human voices in the language brain, the left brain, while non-Japanese people perceive and process them in the right brain. It is also said that this is due to the fact that Japanese, with the exception of “n”, is composed entirely of vowels, while other languages have many consonants.

まだまだ真夏日が続く中、朝晩に秋の訪れをわずかに感じる様になりました。夜の帳が下りて、街中の騒音も治った頃、遠くから微かにスズムシの鳴く声が聞こえてきます。この頃になるとコオロギの鳴く声はよく耳にするのですが、スズムシの鳴く声は滅多に聞いたことがありません。誰かが、飼っているスズムシが逃げ出したのか、逃したのか、いずれにしろ、珍しい事です。
スズムシで思い出しましたが、明治時代に日本にやって来たラフカディオ・ハーン（小泉八雲）が、随筆「虫の声」にこう書いています。「われわれ西洋人はほんの一匹の蟋蟀（こおろぎ）の鳴き声を聞いただけで、心の中にありったけの優しく繊細な空想をあふれさせることができる日本の人々に、何かを学ばねばならないのだ」と。
確かに、日本人以外のほとんどの民族には、虫の声はもちろん、鳥の鳴き声、木々のざわめき、波の音、風の音など等、人の声以外の音は全て雑音でしかないそうです。これに関する興味深い研究はいっぱいあります。共通点は、日本人は、人の声以外の多くの音を言語脳、つまり左脳で捉えますが、日本人以外の民族は右脳で捉え、処理すると言う点です。「ん」以外は全て母音で構成される日本語と、子音が多い他言語にその原因があるとも言われています。