The Mysterious Case Of Bouba And Kiki

There are two possible names for either of these shapes; Bouba and Kiki. Both shapes have to have different names, so which one is which if there is no definite correct answer?

Well about 88% of people will say that the yellow shape is Kiki, and the orange shape is Bouba. This was made clear because I asked every person in the newspaper, and 29 people said so. The Bouba and Kiki question is one of the most famous questions in linguistics, and has been around since 1929. Almost all studies that investigated this classic question have found that pointy shapes like the yellow one above are associated with unvoiced plosives and front vowels like “pi,” “ka,” and “ti.” And round and soft shapes are associated with voiced plosives, nasals, and back vowels like “bou,” “gǝ,” and “no.” 

Early modern linguists theorized that these sounds were not associated with different shapes, and that we were basing those thoughts off of already known words (e.g “nail” and “balloon”). In fact, one of the earliest modern linguists has an entire theory named after him (the Saussurean approach of semiotic arbitrariness) that states that there is absolutely no relation between an object and its name. But there was an English study that was done where each person was given two Peruvian words. They were told that one word was for fish, and one word for chicken, and the English-speaking people (who couldn’t speak a lick of Peruvian, often (58% of the time) sorted the words correctly.

There was a similar study done where Hebrew speakers were given pairs of Chinese words and told that one word had one meaning (e.g: happy) and the other had the opposite meaning (e.g: sad). And 55% of the participants sorted the words correctly.

The fact that these people who couldn’t speak a lick of Peruvian or Chinese had a slight ability to recognize unfamiliar words raised the question;

“Do humans have some sort of built-in associations between sounds and symbols and things in the real world?” —- Tom Scott.

The case of Bouba and Kiki has been tested in many languages and it seems that there is a form of cross modal correspondence (Sound symbolism). This is a correlation between the sounds we make and traits like shape, texture, and taste. Elephants, big deep caves, and wolves make long, deep, and round noises, so they may be associated with those types of tones. While mice, little dogs, and small caves make short, high, and sharp noises, so they may be associated with those types of tones.

Breaking something sharp and brittle like a piece of wood may make a noise like “kiki,” while breaking something soft and round like jello may make a noise like “bouba.” 

This theory is not necessarily true, and it’s good to be skeptical of it (that’s the whole point of science!) In fact, sometimes the theory doesn’t work. In 1975, a bouba-kiki style test was done on Songe speakers in Papua New Guinea, and the results made it seem that the participants were picking randomly. In 2017, another similar test was done on Syuba speakers in Nepal, and again, the results seemed completely random. However, it’s likely that the random words that were given couldn’t exist in those languages.

Sadly, most scientists don’t post data about their failures. Although, almost all studies show that the bouba-kiki distinction is true for most people, and that’s why English speakers often say that round things are bouba, and spiky things are kiki.

Credits:

• Tom Scott — Which Is "Bouba", and Which Is "Kiki"?

REFERENCES:

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