Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week saw less progress on my communication project than I would have otherwise liked, but life has a habit of getting in the way.
Still I managed to read another chapter out of the Oxford Handbook on the History of Linguistics and found this interesting gem.
“The history of sound symbolism is the history of the attempt to resolve this fundamental paradox: on the one hand, if sound determines meaning, we should know what a word means just by hearing it; on the other hand, the distribution of phonemes across semantic domains is not arbitrary.”
Said another way, if sounds are the only determinate of meaning, we would have one universal language. This is clearly not the case, but as some of the examples below show, there are some commonalities among phonetic sound and semantic meaning that appear more than coincidental.
“In this way objects that evoke similar impressions are assigned words with predominately the same sounds such as waft, wind, wisp, wobble and wish, wherein all the wavering, uneasy motion, presenting an obscure flurry to the senses, is expressed by the w, hardened from the already inherently dull and hollow u.”
“We need not limit ourselves to pairs, but may look for larger patterns. One tempting example is the cross-patterning of /gl/ ‘phenomena of light’ and /fl/ ‘phenomena of movement’ with (1) /itr/ ‘intermittent’, (2) /ow/ ‘steady’ and (3) /ur/ ‘intense’: glitter↔flitter, glow↔flow, glare↔flare […] as for the terminal ‘morphemes’ in the above words, we find (1) evidenced also in titter, jitter, litter, iterate; (2) in slow, grow and tow and (3) in blare, stare and tear.”
The commonality of the phonetic sounds to their meaning across multiple words is a compelling argument for sound having a significant affect on meaning. A strong case for more than words as pure abstraction to identify an agreed upon referent.
Interestingly, a lot of the study of sound symbolism examines artists and poets. Those among us gifted with a sense of the perfect word for the perfect situation. Instances where an author’s word choice invokes the desired emotion. Paints the intended picture.
The more information I consume on the topic, or off topic for that matter, the more awed I am for the complexity of language that goes for the most part unexamined and underappreciated.
It also leaves me humbled for the distinct gifts of poetry and prose that clearly delineate the artists from the aspiring.
While working my way through the handbook, I had read three previous chapters on phonetics and struggled to place their value within the context of both my own project and language at large. Sure I see my boys struggle with certain sounds, but they are 2 and 4. Barring any sort of abnormality, they will develop a suitable phonetic acumen and likely think little of it.
But reading just a few paragraphs on sound symbolism completely changed my perspective on phonetics. It has inspired me to pay more attention to their impact especially on my own word choice.
The sound symbolism paradox is quite interesting and worth exploring. It is also a testament to how quickly you can change your mind and appreciate something that you brushed by before. All that is required is a little curiosity, a closer look, and some serenity.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.