LL-L "Lexicon" 2014.01.16 (01) [EN]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 16 January 2014 - Volume 01
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Lexicon

Dear Lowlanders,

As probably all of you know, different languages have variously detailed
vocabularies to areas of life and culture depending on degree of importance
and expertise. Often bandied about is the claim that Inuit (Eskimo)
languages have particularly many terms for snow.

Discover Magazine <http://discovermagazine.com/> just published an
article<http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/01/15/this-language-names-odors-as-precisely-as-english-speakers-name-color/#.UtgvyfRDtLE>(see
below) about a language of Malaysia in which there appear to be about
as many words for smells as there are words for colors in English.

Do similar differences exist within the Lowlands group of language
varieties?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

This Language Names Odors As Precisely As English Speakers Name
Color<http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/01/15/this-language-names-odors-as-precisely-as-english-speakers-name-color/>
By Ben Thomas <http://discovermagazine.com/authors?name=Ben+Thomas> |
January 15, 2014 2:51 pm

Have you ever caught a whiff of perfume and found yourself grasping for the
words to describe it? You might link the scent with a memory of an old
romance, or a specific place – but when it comes to specific words for
scents, the English language leaves us with a pretty limited toolbox.
Though we can distinguish and name colors with acuity – crimson from
scarlet from burgundy – we’re largely limited to vague scent terms, like
“smoky” or “sweet.”

But do distinctions between odor seem equally blurry in other languages?
Linguists Asifa Majid of Radboud University in the Netherlands, and Niclas
Burenhul of Lund Universty in Sweden, suspected that this isn’t the case –
and with good reason. The researchers knew that in at least one language –
Jahai, which is spoken by certain Malaysian groups – words for smells are
far more precise than those used by English speakers. So the scientists set
up a series of experiments to test just how precise Jahai speakers’ scent
concepts really are.

Words for Smells

The researchers gathered a group of 10 native Jahai speakers between the
ages of 20 and 60, and an equivalent group of 10 native English speakers.
All the participants sniffed a series of smell samples from the The Brief
Smell Identification Test – a survey that researchers have used to test
scent sensitivity since the early 80s – and were asked to name each one as
precisely as they could. Then the volunteers looked through a series of
color swatches, and did their best to give precise names to each of those
as well.

Although the volunteers tended to describe each smell and color in their
own words, it quickly became clear that Jahai speakers could describe
colors and odors with equal precision, while English speakers showed much
less aptitude for smells than for colors. While Jahai speakers’ ability to
distinguish smells averaged out just a few percentage points below their
ability to distinguish colors, English speakers’ odor-naming precision
averaged out to less than one tenth of their color distinction specificity.

Just as English has precise color terms like “mauve” and “cerulean,” Jahai
has highly precise terms for smells – such as *cŋεs*, “the smell of petrol,
smoke and bat droppings,” *itpɨt*, “the smell of durian fruit, Aquillaria
wood, and bearcat,”*pʔus *“a musty smell, like old dwellings, mushrooms and
stale food,” and *plʔεŋ*, “a bloody smell that attracts tigers.” English
speakers, meanwhile, tended to rely on broader smell terms like “smoky,”
“sweet,” “piney” and so on. The results were published in the journal
*Cognition*.
Why Names Matter

Debates about how much language sculpts human thought have raged since the
1930s, when linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf first put forth
the hypothesis that we can only think about concepts we can name. And
although the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has fallen out of favor since the 60s,
researchers have found that (for example) native Russian speakers can
distinguish more subtle shades of blue than English speakers can, while an
African tribe called the Himba can tell apart many colors that English
speakers can’t – apparently because those cultures have more words to
describe these shades.

Even if language doesn’t strictly limit the concepts you’re able to think
about, it’s still easier to notice distinctions if you can put them into
words. Which means that if you take the time to recognize the nuances of
your favorite scents, you may find yourself developing a more elaborate
smell vocabulary of your own.

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