Favorite Word Friday: Sounds like...

Favorite Word Friday: Sounds like...

All credit for this week's post goes to @fidelity who left a great comment on last week's FWF introducing the concept of sound symbolism:

In linguistics, sound symbolism, phonesthesia or phonosemantics is the idea that vocal sounds or phonemes carry meaning in and of themselves.

As @fidelity describes, " words like slick, slip, slake, slurp all have something to do with water or moisture, and therefore... something about the "sl" sound... communicates moisture to us."

I've since learned this is an example of sound clustering (which appears in, but is unique to, each language). It results in the creation of alliterative word groups related to similar concepts, like glitter and glisten or spatter and speckle.

Another theory of sound-as-meaning is iconism, which posits that words use letter sounds or combinations to illustrate a concept. For example: the letter “p” represents active steps in words like stamp, tap and tromp.

I wonder if sound symbolism explains why we sometimes feel certain words ought to mean one thing when their definition is quite the opposite.

Are there letters or sounds you associate with aggression, softness, or activity?
Do certain sound clusters (in any language) immediately come to mind?


BONUS NERDINESS:
Though only 1/2000 people are true synesthetes, humans instinctively create synesthetic connections as evidenced by our use of metaphor and the bouba/kiki effect. It allows us to to describe words as"cutting" or pain as "dull."

This episode of the podcast The Slow Melt also touches on the bouba/kiki effect and how our other senses influence our experience of taste. The first intriguing question: Does a lemon taste “fast or slow?” (Jump to 9:32.)

And finally, in 30 illuminating seconds, Dwight Schrute explains why it's called "murder" and not "mukduk."

image-1494602461508.gif