Try to describe the nuances of a rose's smell, the actual tactile experience of its petals, and its exact hue. You can't put it into precise words. Enafable senses are at the focal point of the KikiBouba sensorial font, a new way to trap sensorial impressions in writing.
What senses are easier to describe? It depends on who you ask. Western cognitive scientists would argue that touch and scent are less accessible to expression. Majid & Levinson, at a conference in 2011, posed the question of whether this approach is culture-dependent or brain-wired. At that conference, many who participated in 'The Language of perception across cultures' project shared their findings.
Mark Dingemanse shared his psycholinguistic point of view. He described a Ganayc village where an encounter with a fruit merchant is ongoing. Ideophones enrich the dialogue between the participants who speak Silu. They would say 'ìgbèdi sinisinisinisini' to express how smooth the Qassava is. One would worry that the unripe bananas would make his teeth sticky. He would say, 'kànya amε tìtìrìtììì' . One of the advisors shared that Ideophones are like pepper. Without them, speech is buàà [tasteless]
Ideophones are sound pictures, as Wilhelm Wundt coined the term Lautbilder in 1900. These words have distinct grammatical characteristics. They are rare in English, but they can be found in many other languages, such as Japan, Korea, and Africa.
Ideophones and onomatopoeia, a sub-use case of ideophones, are sound utterings that unite meaning and sound. A known experiment shows two closed shapes, one that is pointy and one that is round. When asked, most people would match the sound kiki to the pointy shape and the sound Bouba to the rounded shape.
I'm fascinated by the infallible state, where we cannot express, describe, and share what we sense or feel because of the lack of proper signs. Formulating the kikibouba sensorial font is another step toward a visual language for scent.
I'm inspired by the ideophones' ability to spice communication with an utterance that, for a speaker of an ideophone-rich language like Korean or Japanese, feels like a heightened experience, one that enables him or her to feel out there, with the speaker feeling closer to his or her experience.
doki doki (ドキドキ) heart-pounding is used to express an agitated state of mind. This means that ideophones can express complex emotional states, not just sensory impressions.
To formulate a visual symbol system that enables us to express sensorial impressions in writing, I need to attain two things -
To show how one can use a limited number of symbols to express different sensory stimulation.
To discover a systemized principle to map sensorial impressions
To formulate a non-arbitrary sign.
I detail my quest to fulfill these conditions here.
Download kikibouba.ttf
Use shift+` shift+1 shift+2 shift+3 shift+4 shift+5 shift+6 shift+7 shift+8 shift+9 shift+0 shift+-
and combine them to express where you feel the sensorial impression in your body, how intense it is, and how pleasant/unpleasant it is.
I'd love to know what you've discovered.
An emoji set is coming soon.
Contact me to find out more.
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