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Speak the speech, I pray you

Although I’m getting on in years, I pride myself on keeping up with things that continue to bubble up around me. New words are a never ending source of wonder, especially when they describe things I didn’t know existed.

Ideophone puzzled me for a while I have to admit. At first, the word was just too close to ‘idiot’ for me to take it seriously. Then, I thought perhaps it was just a disgruntled description of what kids are constantly tapping wherever you look. Actually, everybody seems to tap and chortle with them, not just the Gen Z’s -or is it the Millennials? I’ve lost track of those clubs which have never asked me to join…

Eventually, on further investigation, I wondered if ideophones were sort of like specialized onomatopoeias (if that’s the plural of a word I seldom need to use). But as I came to understand them better, I realized that ideophones in some sense actually resemble or even evoke the sensations of what they are meant to describe. They aren’t just the ‘oink-oink’ imitators of the sounds of some animal or other; you don’t even need to know the language of the word to suspect something of its meaning. Ideophones seem to be able to allow you to experience the word…[i]

Are they parts of language which are embodied? Does an ideophone entail a subtle feedback for both listener and speaker; between the sound of a word, and our vocal apparatus -our own experience of human physicality? Unfortunately (for me) English doesn’t seem to have as many ideophones as, say, Japanese, so the concept probably doesn’t sell as well to those of us who are imprisoned by Anglo-monoglottism.

I mean ideophones are unique; they apparently have their own linguistic rules. Words in this class, as a whole, depict sensual scenes with an intensity that cannot be expressed by vocabulary outside their class; rather than merely a description of something, an ideophone is more a participation in the encounter with it -an involvement in it…

As you can imagine, this is difficult concept for ageing brains even in curious people like me who, although fascinated by the idea, had never studied linguistics during the useful part of their lives; people who, even in their dotage, had never heard of, let alone dreamt of, the Bouba-Kiki Effect (two made-up words which people across cultures apparently associate with round and prickly objects, respectively.) And not only humans, but apparently even a group of little chicks preferred a spiky shape when they heard the word ‘Kiki’ and a round shape when they heard ‘Bouba’ (according to some researchers in a 17 May bioRxiv preprint at any rate). I mean, the stuff that gets grants nowadays, eh…?

Anyway, does that suggest that rather than being simply a culturally learned phenomenon unique to humans, ideophones -sound symbolisms- may belong to a set of predisposed associations built into different species? It’s a fascinating question that makes me wish that I’d paid more attention to my dog when I was a child.

Still, I have to admit that there is something round about the sound bouba, and something prickly about kiki… But is that just because the idea was implanted in me by reading about it? Sort of like the idea a few years ago that ice cubes in advertisements for glasses of Scotch contained subliminal messages that captured our young and enquiring minds over a few beers in the university dorm? Well, mine anyway.

I decided to test the hypothesis on a random person on the bus -it’s the best way to meet strangers. The choice of seats on a crowded bus is seldom predictable, and the only space available was beside an older woman who was attempting to read a book despite the noisy chaos surrounding her. She was clearly finding it difficult to concentrate, because she kept glancing irritably at the teenagers in the seat ahead her when they gesticulated wildly, or laughed too loudly at something they were watching on their phones.

After one particularly noticeable giggle, she sighed and turned to me and whispered “I don’t understand the fascination of those things…”  She shook her head slowly, but sadly I thought. “I mean they treat them as extra appendages…”

I assumed she was referring to their phones, not their position in any Lamarckian scheme of evolution, so I smiled and staged a theatrical shrug. It was an attribution I hadn’t really considered before, though. I figured this was as good a time as any to test the hypothesis on my seatmate.

“So would you say their phones are Bouba or Kiki?” I ventured, apropos of nothing, really.

I suddenly realized that I should have introduced the words with an introductory explanation, because she stared at me for a long moment and then noticeably shifted her position away from me in the seat.

“Pardon me?” she said with a puzzled wrinkle on her face.

It occurred to me that my question probably sounded to her as if I was asking her about ‘poo-poo’ or ‘pee-pee’ like a little child. She studied my face, obviously hoping she’d misheard me.

I smiled apologetically and tried to explain. “Ideophones,” I started, but judging by the increasing furrows on her brow, I could tell she thought my descriptions of the girls and their activities were in poor taste.

“It was a non sequitur, I suppose…” I shrugged apologetically. “Your referring to their phones as appendages made me think of ideophones, for some reason.”

She smiled, but conciliatorily I thought -like you might do when confronted by someone you’d rather not sit beside.

“Words like ‘bouba’ and ‘kiki’ are ideophones: in this case, made-up words which people across cultures apparently associate with round and prickly objects, respectively…” Her expression still made me think she was wondering if I’d escaped from somewhere, or at least was off my medications.

She suddenly glanced out of the window and reached for the cord over her head. “I almost missed my stop,” she explained, and struggled past me to the exit. But once she’d made it to the aisle, she turned to me and smiled. “Very interesting idea of yours; I’m more of an orthodox Saussurean, though.” She sighed noisily, as if she were offended. “Where do they get these new-fangled ideas anyway?” And then her eyes twinkled and she winked at me. “Good thing I’m not still an English professor… I’d be a real Kiki, eh?”

I always seem to read people incorrectly…

[i]https://aeon.co/essays/in-the-beginning-was-the-word-and-the-word-was-embodied

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