Caroline
Member
What order exists behind our language?
Is it arbitrary or not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
What do you think about the "Shape of the Words"
Is the sound of the words sharing a same internal architecture with those geometric objects that their names are making reference?
Elemenope
Moderator
It makes quite a bit of sense. After all, what we think of as vision is a highly pre-processed version of what our retinas pick up, with the unconscious brain already having done most of the work of demarcating boundaries between objects and assigning them to rough conceptual categories before we even "know" what we're looking at. Given that people report highly similar experiences in seeing, and that the neural equipment is pretty similar in all people, it stands to reason that the visual cortex is hooked up to the conceptual processing parts of the brain in a way shared by pretty much everyone; it's a short hop from conceptual processing to language processing, being highly related mental tasks as they are.
From a philosophy angle, this mirrors a point that Merleau-Ponty made, about human experiential awareness being extended into the full space that our body takes up (not a single spatial point, as our visual cortex alone gives us the illusion of being) as well as the more general point that the physical acts of doing and experiencing are an inextricable element from the mental processing of acts and experiences. Since we share similar auditory and visual equipment, it stands to reason that the physical experiences of seeing and hearing would cause pretty consistent effects upon conceptual and linguistic processing. The effects of being an embodied mind are highly similar amongst similarly embodied minds.
UrsaMinor
Member
I see a problem with the methodology. The experimental subjects are all drawn from the same Sprachbund; the referenced studies investigated only speakers of Indo-European languages or speakers of a Dravidian language that has been surrounded by Indo-European neighbors for over 3000 years. Dravidian and the Indo-European languages of the Indian subcontinent are known to share common features due to close contact and borrowing, despite the lack of a genetic relationship between them.
It should also be noted that the referenced Wikipedia article gets some of its basic facts and assertions muddled. This does not inspire confidence. E.g., "The sounds of a K are harder and more forceful than those of a B" is meaningless without qualification (Are the consonants in question fortis or lenis? Is the unvoiced stop K aspirated as in English, or unaspirated as in French? How about the B? And are one or both consonants released or unreleased?), or just plain wrong: normally, voiced consonants like 'B', take much more energy to produce than unvoiced ones like 'K'; this is difficult to reconcile with the vague assertion that K is "harder and more forceful" than B. In any case, a more proper experiment should have included a subset that contrasted "gigi" and "bouba", or "kiki" and "poupa".
I have also heard an alternate hypothesis which postulates that it's the vowels and not the consonants that are the determiners. This has problems of its own.
This is not to say that the theory is wrong, but the experiments as described are too poorly executed to establish this as a universal linguistic principle. I'd be much more comfortable with the less ambitious assertion that it is an areal feature of the Indo-European Sprachbund. Until you add in data from monolingual speakers of Mandarin, kiSwahili and Maori, you really can't make any stronger claim than this.
Elemenope
Moderator
I tell my students that if they use Wikipedia as a reference in any fashion they will automatically fail.
I suppose we can't expect a much better source from Caroline, at least she didn't try to use her social group as proof of the article's veracity.
People refer to Wikipedia to introduce or give a thumbnail sketch of a concept they are describing on the Internet in a casual conversation, and that *is* an acceptable use for the tool. It's one thing to concur with Ursa, as I do, that it is at best an interesting idea that needs to be tested more--and more rigorously--to see if it holds true over broader language families and in more diverse conditions. It's quite another to be dismissive simply on the basis that the person uses Wikipedia to introduce the idea.
julie42
Member
Wikipedia is actually highly accurate and the people who edit it must have sources. I've heard that if someone edits a page and leaves bullshit information, it will typically be corrected within ten minutes.
I probably go to Wikipedia at least twice a day because I'm constantly looking up random things. The only time I've ever come across bad information was on pages for famous people. It makes sense because the only way it's funny to people is if it's a pop-culture page that everyone knows about. No one will sabotage the Bouba/kiki effect page.
Wikipedia is a great source for casual internet conversations.
Caroline
Member
@Elmenope: Interesting that about the neural process!!
@Ursa: May be we have to refer to the sound of "K" instead of the letter "K".
In my opinion, the important thing here is the spoken language related to the shapes it refers to. What do you think about that?
@Agathos: You´re right. I´m a teacher too, and I teach in two universities. But I go even farther, so if my pupils use any link of internet as a source in their works, they instantly fail.
I expect from them to explain the situations with their own words.
And in this case, this experiment is pretty simple and evident, and doesn´t need any source to be understood (or proved).
If my English were more fluent I wouldn´t even post any source. I´d explain it with my own words.
So, as Elmenope said for this particular case, that´s ok.
If you think that any source is necessary for this, we will thank you to post a good source, after all that´s a thread intended for.
Please dont´t criticize, and give a helping hand, sharing some info :)
And just in case you say it´s not an interesting topic for you, I´ll answer: "What are you doing here?"
Kodie
Member
This article doesn't have a lot more (a little less, as the wiki article wasn't very long or detailed) than the wikipedia article linked, but it's interesting.
http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2011/07/073111-boubakiki-thought-experiment.html
Everything is interesting.
I find the letter "K" interesting as the sound Kuh! I am fascinated by onomastics (the study of the origin, history, and use of proper names), and the letter K is something of a trend. In many languages, a name may start with K, but in English, a C. It is interesting the ways or reasons people have to modify a common name by replacing a C with a K, either to make it stand apart, or to evoke a foreign language version of the name. There are also people who revert directly to the foreign language version of the name as "more authentic" to have an American baby named with a foreign language version of a name (bonus points if they have at least a drop of biological heritage) than an Americanized application of a K where traditionally has been a C. When the C has an "S" sound, fewer people seem to apply an S. It is not as common in foreign language versions of a name to either start with an S where English has a C, as I believe most of those names may have originally had a "Ch" sound and dropped the 'h', while other names that in English start with an S are difficult to apply an S-sounding C, due to vowel rules (which are sometimes but rarely broken in English) - Ca, Co, Cu= KUH sound; Ce, Ci, Cy= SUH sound. There is also some usage of an X where there was a -cks- (-ks-) sound, which some people find difficult to tolerate. There are a lot of people on either side of the debate, whether a name has to regard "authenticity" of its origin, in which case, John should be spelled with an I, or whether it's ok for Americans to spell names as they wish. I regard the transformation of names across languages as inevitable - if you say, for example, the name is Antonius, what process took place as the French call it Antoine or the English call it Anthony? It regards the American translation as invalid in the same process.
Anyway, J is an interesting letter, as yes, where did the JUH sound come from? Many languages call it a YUH or HUH, which, coming back to bouba/kiki, it really depends on the understood language if you try it with "noota/jini". I am sort of babbling out the end of this. I think bouba/kiki is sort of extreme, but as applied to the practice of naming, sounds do play a part in the appeal and effect of a name, as do impressions, and a lot of other things, but it's hard to get over the mental image of a sound.
UrsaMinor
Member
@Ursa: May be we have to refer to the sound of "K" instead of the letter "K".
In my opinion, the important thing here is the spoken language related to the shapes it refers to. What do you think about that?
Caroline, from your question here, it is difficult to believe that you read my post. I made no reference to the shapes of the written letters in any of my comments. I wrote only about the sounds produced by the human vocal tract.
Kodie
Member
I had Dr. Oz on my tv yesterday out of complete laziness to find where my remote was and get up and change the channel. He had a lady on who analyzes handwriting - apparently the shapes we make when we write letters on a page betrays our inner thoughts and gives clues to the health of a person as well. She started with the cursive letter f; here is a diagram (not the same one she used): http://funeasyenglish.com/graphics/writing/writing%20the%20english%20alphabet%20cursive%20small%20letter%20f.gif
The diagram she used overlaid on an illustration of a person, and from that diagram, she described whether you could tell that your feet hurt or had a brain tumor or details about how far along pregnant you might be (I might have some of these slightly wrong, but this was the angle she was pushing), by the angle and shape of the drawn letter, as well as any flaws in the line and where those flaws were located. She had everyone in the audience make a writing sample, and Dr. Oz himself had a lowercase s that she warned was exactly like Ted Bundy, which makes Dr. Oz in danger of becoming a serial killer. She had that the letters of the alphabet coincided with deep, dark parts of our psyche and revealed things we wouldn't necessarily reveal, and also that we can consciously alter our handwriting to transform negativity. I know that you can alter your handwriting with practice. Every so often I get into a habit where I draw the number 8 like a snowman (two circles) instead of an infinity. Good news (sarcasm) for this lady, as penmanship is about to become obsolete.
In another part of my brain, I have esoteric (and perhaps false) knowledge of how the letters of the alphabet resemble physical objects, like the letter "M" for "mountain," as it looks just like a mountain!
I hope you understand that I am not agreeing with these two thoughts. I am sharing them because they are ridiculous. If this is where the current conversation is headed, let's not shut the door on Agathos just yet.
Caroline
Member
@Kodie
This conversation is headed on the possible linkage among the internal structure of the sounds and the objects that those sounds are making reference as "those objects names".
The main question here is: "Has the language an arbitrary origin and evolution, or not?"
And Agathos is welcome to share information and enrich the debate, but not mocking to people (that´s an unnecesary and bad behavior)
Kodie
Member
I'm going to need more than this bouba/kiki thing to understand what you're going for, then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K
Which of the diagrams in your article looks more like an open hand?
Caroline
Member
A question. Why are you talking about the shape of the "K" letter?
We´re talking about the sound itself, not the shape of the letters.
The studied linkage is the one existing between the object and the sound of that object´s name. (no matter how that sound is being written in a particular language)
UrsaMinor
Member
Absent obvious examples of onomatopoeia, sound symbolism (especially spanning different language families) appears to be pretty arbitrary. Mao doesn't have anything in common with gato, which in turn doesn't sound like felis, although they all symbolize the very same object.
Caroline
Member
May be the cat is the main object, but may be "mao" is referring to its vocal tract, while "felis" is referring to its genetics as specie (just to imagine that it could have a deeper reality of linkages)
Just thinking of some possibilities.
Or may be that´s completely arbitrary...
It´s hard to know that.
I think that may deserve a serious investigation.
Kodie
Member
Ok, then. If you say the word "green beans" slowly enough, it will make the same sound as if you say the word "gullible". Try it.
Also, let's next try to repeat any word. After a few times, 5-10 times, it's really weird. Next, we shall try to see if we all see the same colors as we call them: is your vision of "red" what I would call "yellow"? I generally see topics like this as like, "whoa, dude" but I appreciate conversations where we debunk this sort of nonsense, or at least provide as much information as possible.
Caroline
Member
As I said , This is just a thing to think about.
And each one is arriving their own conclusions. If that´s yours, I think that´s great! :)
I listen to all answers.
In my latest threads, I just post to listen at your thoughts, that´s quite interesting for me, and all what I want!
Kodie
Member
Lacks rigor. Elemenope gave the best answer so far, and as far as Agathos suggestion, a little abrupt but also correct. Better and more thorough information, or else we are just amateurs pseudo-philosophizing about our navel lint, of which you seem to prefer this forum was all about.
Caroline
Member
As I told before, This was just to hear your thoughts.
A good way to know you better. The way you think.
For example, now I know your way of communication (likes and dislikes, trends) and your thoughts a little more Kodie.
And the same for Elmenope, and Ursa, and Agathos.
Reading other posts here in UF I know some other aspects from you people.
That´s all that I want. To know you better, because I really like you people.
UrsaMinor
Member
You've got it completely backwards, Caroline. Felis is Latin; the ancient Romans had no concept of genetics and so could not apply it when coining words; Linnaeus used the the common Classical Latin noun for "cat" when designating the modern scientific genus name two thousand years later.
"Mao" is the modern Mandarin word. The Old Chinese had a different vowel and some kind of stop consonant at the end (most likely a G-sound) which has since disappeared. At a minimum, the original word was probably something much more like *maeg or *muig, which not especially suggestive of a cat's cry.
"Gato" is probably from an Afro-Asiatic or Semitic root *kad-. This root was borrowed into Latin at a late date and appears as an alternative Latin word for cat, cattus (the proximal source of the Spanish noun gato, through the usual pattern of regular sound changes from Latin to modern Spanish).
One thing that science tells us that that humans are very, very, very good at finding patterns in things- even where it can be rigorously shown that none actually exist. We are also not content to be ignorant, so we readily make up explanations that sound good to us, without bothering to check our facts. To think that the discipline of comparative linguistics, whose whole methodology depends on identifying patterns, would have missed a universal linguistic tendency for the shape of words to reflect the things that they represent, flies in the face of rationality.
Kodie
Member
What we think and feel about things we can think and feel and have opinions about is one way, but to shoot the shit, so to speak, over a topic where feelings and opinions are insubstantial are kind of airy-fairy. Like Ursa says, seeking or recognizing patterns and finding them interesting is a human thing, but how can we use it to get to know each other? Or how can we use it to know something about our world? I prefer the latter and sort our topics thusly.
Example: I think clouds look like bunnies. What does that have to do with anything? They're not bunnies. http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/what-are-clouds-k4.html
Elemenope
Moderator
To think that the discipline of comparative linguistics, whose whole methodology depends on identifying patterns, would have missed a universal linguistic tendency for the shape of words to reflect the things that they represent, flies in the face of rationality.
Humans have been familiar with most of the properties of water for fifty thousand years or so, and chemists have been working with the stuff rigorously for the better part of a millennium. Hence, it would be unreasonable to expect anything new out of studying water.
And yet, the Leidenfrost Effect and the Mpemba Effect both demonstrate that we can learn new things from highly familiar subjects, simply by looking at it in a way that was glossed over in prior investigations. Leidenfrost discovered the Leidenfrost point as distinct from the boiling point simply by dripping water on a very hot plate. Mpemba just used a bunsen burner, a freezer, and a decent thermometer.
There are many examples in many other fields of exactly this sort of discovery occurring. Hence, I don't really ever accept the whole "we couldn't possibly have missed anything because we've been at it so long" argument as persuasive. Sometimes we miss patterns because we don't recognize them as such, even when they are staring us in the face the whole time, or simply because nobody ever bothered to check.
Caroline
Member
Well I wouldn´t dare to say that (due to my bad reputation here), but I really think so Elmenope. I absolutely agree with your statements:
"we can learn new things from highly familiar subjects, simply by looking at it in a way that was glossed over in prior investigations"
"Sometimes we miss patterns because we don't recognize them as such, even when they are staring us in the face the whole time"
UrsaMinor
Member
Well, no, I would never argue that we could not possibly have missed anything in Discipline X because we've been studying it for so long. But I do think it's reasonable to assert that we probably haven't missed anything that is both universal and central to a particular mature discipline. Comparative linguistics is all about finding common patterns, especially sound changes. Consider subtle things like Grassman's Law, for example. Anything as obvious as the effect that Caroline is postulating would certainly have been revealed by now, given the degree of scrutiny the subject has received over the past couple of centuries, just as basic phase transitions (and a few of their quirks) have been known to physical chemistry since nearly the dawn of the discipline.
Elemenope
Moderator
I would say that explaining the behavior of the most ubiquitous solvent is central to chemistry as it is practiced, no?
Anything as obvious as the effect that Caroline is postulating would certainly have been revealed by now, given the degree of scrutiny the subject has received over the past couple of centuries, just as basic phase transitions (and a few of their quirks) have been known to physical chemistry since nearly the dawn of the discipline.
I agree, provisionally. It would be one heck of an oversight. What I would suggest, though, is that pre-scientific observations like the one Caroline pointed to can indicate a possibly fertile ground for study, which often do, in the course of falsifying the original broad hypothesis, uncover many subtler effects that gave rise to the original impression there was a pattern to be explicated. So, it is probably pretty likely that there is no essential connection between what the letter "k" looks like and words preferentially inclusive of a "k" sound, but the original study might indicate that that is the wrong way to proceed.
If it were me, for example, I'd think (as I spitballed up top) that there might be some connection between basic conceptual processing (especially as a result of visual stimulus) and preference for associated sounds; maybe there is a subtler connection between the general class of sounds (sibilants vs. glottal-stopped consonants, for example) that do generally correspond with certain types of visual stimulus. Narrowing the hypothesis in that way and looking for what would be a subtler effect may be useful, and pointedly probably impossible without the general broader, cruder hypothesis to point to where to look.
UrsaMinor
Member
I agree, provisionally. It would be one heck of an oversight. What I would suggest, though, is that pre-scientific observations like the one Caroline pointed to can indicate a possibly fertile ground for study, which often do, in the course of falsifying the original broad hypothesis, uncover many subtler effects that gave rise to the original impression there was a pattern to be explicated. So, it is probably pretty likely that there is no essential connection between what the letter "k" looks like and words preferentially inclusive of a "k" sound, but the original study might indicate that that is the wrong way to proceed.
Absolutely. Any discipline has to start somewhere, and pre-scientific speculations fueled by curiosity and the "urge to explain" are the fundamental springboard. It does not matter if they prove to be wrong; what matters is that they lead to investigation.
I would not be entirely surprised if certain common tendencies (probably not universals) were found in the association of sounds and the concepts we use them for. This is already fairly evident at a linguistic-family or Sprachbund level, but so far on the basis of the evidence it is entirely attributable to common descent and mutual influence.
Still, it is amusing to me that one of the proposed "universals" (that small, delicate things are represented by high, tense front vowels like /i/ and big, clunky things by lax low or back vowels like /o/ and /a/) is clearly violated in English by the words "big" and "small". :)
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