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There's a Tom Scott video about this with some further academic references: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TDIAObsqcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TDIAObs
by gfaure 5y ago
There's a Tom Scott video about this with some further academic references: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TDIAObsqcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TDIAObsqcs
Bouba/kiki is most likely a specific instance of the more general notion of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_symbolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_symbolism. Another well-known cross-linguistic association is the one between front vowels and small objects on one hand, and back vowels and large objects on the other.
- P-ala-din 5y agoI just watched this video a few hours ago because youtube randomly recommended it to me. I wonder if it's just the Baader–Meinhof effect or if the post was caused by the same youtube algorithm.
- kanbara 5y agoi would use the term frequency illusion, as baader-meinhof refers to a specific instance of someone who coined the term, and are members of a former west german left extremist terrorist group which actually killed people. pretty weird that it continues to be in use, it'd be as if we discovered this effect today and called it the taliban effect or the stalin gulag effect.
- sedivy94 5y agoI see nothing wrong with the examples you provide.
- kgarten 5y agoWhy? yes they should be remembered for the atrocities they did … why change the name? I’m always worried that if we engage in this type of cancelling we will end up with vilification and people will forget that Stalin and Hitler were also just people (and not evil looking demons). The Taliban got a dedication on an Apollo mission and in one of the Rambo movies … now these things tend to be forgotten. It’s always better to remember and remind people about the potential of evil we (you and me) can do to other people. Leave the name, yet make sure that the article and every mention refers also to the R A F.
- Zababa 5y agoI've seen a few time things like that, you often see short and weird videos in the millions of views with everyone saying in the comments that they came suddenly due to the algorithm. I've always had this theory that at some people people (or machines) realized that it's easier to push everyone to have the same tastes compared to catering to every single niche. I think it's an extension of that.
- twelvechairs 5y ago'Symbolism' is a terrible word to describe something like this. Symbols are convention and can change. This is the opposite - an innate cross-sensory connection that will not change.
- hyperpape 5y agoDoes a lion symbolize something fierce? The Book of Isaiah notwithstanding, I doubt that symbol will change.
- twelvechairs 5y agoA lion IS something fierce. But only its use in western history make it a symbol of that. There's plenty of other fierce creatures (e.g. an orca, a crocadile, a poisonous frog) that wouldn't conjure the same symbolism.
- hyperpape 5y agoIt’s structurally the same. You can choose a lion, a wolf, a shark, etc, but it is not arbitrary that you choose some such animal to symbolize ferocity, and not a rabbit. There’s some bias to associate sounds with particular images or concepts, but we have different languages because we don’t choose the same words. If anything, the consistency of symbolism is much greater than inter-linguistic consistency of how words sound.
- twelvechairs 5y agoI don't understand what point you are trying to make. You seem to have made exactly mine. Symbolism is a choice. The Bouba/Kiki thing is not.
- beaconstudios 5y agothey're arguing that symbols are not arbitrary, which is true but I think they inferred that you were making that argument as opposed to the softer "symbols are conventional" one that you did make. Convention does not necessarily imply arbitrariness. If symbols were arbitrary then maybe a rabbit could symbolise ferocity, but they are instead more like metaphors that need to tie into something concrete.