Which Is "Bouba", and Which Is "Kiki"?
Sooner or later, I was going to get around to this: it's one of the most famous experiments in linguistics. •
Written with Molly Ruhl and Gretchen McCulloch. Gretchen's podcast has an episode all about this: lingthusiasm.com/post/175127434871/lingthusiasm-episode-21-what-words-sound-spiky
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Graphics by William Marler: wmad.co.uk
Audio mix by Graham Haerther: haerther.net
REFERENCES:
Köhler, W. (1929). Gestalt Psychology. New York: Liveright.
Ramachandran, V. S., Hubbard, E. M. (2001) Synaesthesia-A window into perception, thought and language. Journal of Consciousness Studies 8: 3-34.
Berlin, B. (1994). Evidence for pervasive synesthetic sound symbolism in ethnozoological nomenclature. In L. Hinton, J. Nichols & J. Ohala (Eds.), Sound symbolism (pp. 76 - 93). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Davis, R. (1961). The fitness of names to drawings. a cross-cultural study in Tanganyika. Br. J. Psychol. 52, 259-268. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1961.tb00788.x,
Ramachandran, V. S., and Hubbard, E. M. (2001). Synaesthesia-a window into perception, thought and language. J. Conscious. Stud. 8, 3-34.,
Koriat, A., & Levy, I. (1979). Figural symbolism in Chinese ideographs. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 8 (4), 353 - 365.
Maurer, D., Pathman, T., Mondloch, C.J. (2006). The shape of boubas: sound-shape correspondences in toddlers and adults. Developmental science, Vol.9 (3), p.316-322,
Nielsen, A., and Rendall, D. (2011). The sound of round: evaluating the sound-symbolic role of consonants in the classic Takete-Maluma phenomenon. Can. J. Exp. Psychol. 65, 115-124. doi: 10.1037/a0022268,
Bremner, A. J., Caparos, S., Davidoff, J., de Fockert, J., Linnell, K. J., and Spence, C. (2013). “Bouba” and “Kiki” in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape-sound matches, but different shape-taste matches to Westerners. Cognition 126, 165-172. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.09.007
De Saussure, F. (2011, republished from 1916). Course in general linguistics. Columbia University Press.
Styles, S.J., & Gawne, L. (2017). When Does Maluma/Takete Fail? Two Key Failures and a Meta-Analysis Suggest That Phonology and Phonotactics Matter. I-Perception, 8(4), 2041669517724807.
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Julkaistu 7 kuukautta sitten
Thanks to all the team who work with me on these! This is very much a collective effort these days, despite me being the face of it. Please do pull down the description to see everyone involved, and all the references!
I think part of it is that all the letters in kiki have a lot of sharp edges and points while bouba is a lot more rounded
There is research showing that all the nouns of a language more commonly contain specific phonemes, and that the verbs of a language more commonly contain a different set of phonemes. Furthermore there is evidence that speakers of a language have knowledge of this distinct statistical distribution of phonemes between nouns and verbs. The idea that speakers have phonetic knowledge of very abstract linguistic units such as lexical classes (nouns and verbs) is new; cognitive linguistic theory has focused on postulating and describing the abstract semantic content of lexical classes and has considered phonetic knowledge to only be instantiated at level of the individual word. See Hollman, W 2013 'nouns and verbs in cognitive grammar: where is the 'sound' evidence?'.
post something original Guys this video is stolen and who wanna throw tomatoes on this guy 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅 👎👎👎👎 👎
Before500
Hey, could it possibly be that the words for bird in the Peruvian language are kinda similar to the sounds made by the bird? When I read the words in my head it kinda sounds like a birds tweet or a chirp...
booba
BOOBA
booba
This is because the letter "K" is pointy and the letter "B" is round
kiki is pointy like the star bouba is round shaped like the splat
Booba
“Day 348. I’m still looking through the comments section looking for a ‘baba and keke’ joke, nothing found yet.”
Heh, booba
Pyra? More like [round shape]
BOOBA
Whaaaaaa?????
booba
booba
00:07 Red: Bouba Blue: Kiki I know that most people would do the opposite, but I have Synesthesia-for me voiced consonants feel reddish and unvoiced bluish.
Booba?
don't know if it's just me but the colors of the shapes impacted which name i thought fit them the best as well. to me, 'bouba' is a very blue word
On my way to go hit a bear
Of course, since there's so much attribution to sources, I guess we can't tell Tom that there are CITATIONS NEEDED. ... I'll see myself out now. :)
booba
Wait what I thought that the pointy one is bouba and the other one is kiki
B O O B A
BOOBA
I chose wrong at the beginning, guess Im a weirdo
i used to say that the number 8 would feel squishy and 9 and 7 would feel sharp i still feel that
Booba and pp
( • )( • ) 👀 Booba!
booba
Hehe booba
טוב
I called the red shape "bouba" because it sounds to me like "boom" and the red one is similar to comic shapea with this word written in the middle, like the explosion shape. The blue one I caled Kiki because it's sound like a bunny or rabbit name, and the rounded ends of the shape looks kind of like rabbit's/bunny's ears.
Kiki sounds sharper off the tongue so of course we'd choose the shape with sharper edges
Bouba even looks round, as does the shape. Kiki looks pointy, so does the shape. And it also sounds like that (and yes, synesthesia is definitely a thing for me).
BOOBA
i just came to hear him say booba
Booba
hehe booba
booba
booba
Booba
b o o b a?
2:42 booba
booba
Interestingly, my decision seems to have been based off of the color... I’ve known Kiki as a female name so I paired it with the pink
Can't this just be explained by asserting that there is some similarities between all human languages simply because they all share an ancestor language? Kind of like how all creatures have some similarities between them because of a common ancestor.
I knew what was happening before watching this... So I called the pointy one bouba
BRO. I’ve always thought of two categories for letters. “Sharp”, which has letters like k, i, t, x. And “round” letters, which has ones like o, b, u, p. Everybody I’ve told about this has just thought I was weird until now
baba and keke are --people-- --walls-- whatever! too, y'know!
The word kiki and the red shape SEEM to me to be associated with cartoon/comic book “kaboom!” The word bouba and the blue shape SEEM to me to be associated with word “bubble”
So in short, round sound- round object, sharp sound- pointy object
BOOBA
booba
My only thought was the spiky one was bouba from just seeing the thumbnail, and after watching this, I'm only marginally more concerned for the state of my brain
booba
booba
Booba
Because booba is round
BOOBA
Booba
Booba 👀
Booba round, my only reason...
BOOBA
i chose the opposite bouba>boom>explosion? kiki>flowery kind of sound?
Bouba Pp
O•‿O• BOOBA
booba
What does it mean though if ur me and went for the opposite pairing and still thing that it sounds wrong the way everyone else pairs them haha am I broken?
“R is one of the most menacing of sounds. That’s why they call it murder not ‘muckduck’.” -Dwight K. Schrute
What about the Spanish trilled R? The one that most English-speaking people have trouble pronouncing?
Doesn't work with the modern English R anymore, but he's still right about most languages. In modern English, K is a more menacing sound than R.
I often use sounds combined with hand gestures to communicate taste/mouth sensation
We now have recorded evidence of Tom saying "BOOBA"
booba
bo ga no
In a parallel universe: Bouba, Do you love me? are you riding? are never gonna leave from beside me?
That one’s easy, bouba is you
kiki is blue but bouba is r ed
kiki is blue but bouba is red
Haha booba
booba
Booba and titi
For those words of fish and bird I got 4 out of 5, interesting.
Booba
haha, booba
I suspect the main example given is a matter of tactile experience. We make the sounds with our bodies, in fact with one of the most sensitive and agile parts of our bodies. Make a B sound and your mouth does rounded things which you can feel and which you have done uncountable times. Make a K etc etc. I think it is interesting how so many explanations from linguists on these phenomena are kinda detached from that physical experience, they get to it last if at all.
booba?
did anyone else think this was about baba is you?
Pointy is Bouba roundy is Kiki. change my mind.
booba
Booba
Honestly though, I'm an English speaker and the *oba one is round, and the tlet one feels shattered.
booba
I dont know because i dont know
Booba
Bird is pointy. Borb is round.
Booba
I picked them because Kiki has letters that are sharp and bouba has letters that are round
I chose kiki as point because the only reasonwas the k sound ab buba cus the b sound cus it sounds more soft edit: a bit colour too but the sound and shape was the most important/connected for me
booba
Bouba -- Baba Kiki -- Kiki baba is you
booba
me: hehe booba
booba