Anyone Here Ever Think of Words As "Pure Sounds"?

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Do You Ever Think of Words As "Pure Sounds"?
Yes 82%  82%  [ 14 ]
No 18%  18%  [ 3 ]
Total votes : 17

DGuru
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10 Nov 2010, 1:45 am

I sometimes think of words by themselves as "pure sounds" without definitions, even say them outloud when people aren't around if I find the sound amusing.

For example, I find that "jail" when separated from its definition and thought of only as a "sound" sounds nice. "Gale" sounds nice too but feels stronger. "Happy" doesn't really evoke any reaction when thought of by itself(which is odd considering its meaning). But "Euphoria" does kind of sound euphoric even when divorced from its meaning.

Is being able to think of the sound the word makes separately from its definition related to Asperger's? I once(never will again) tried playing this game of just thinking about the sound a word makes by itself with some friends(probably NTs) and they didn't get it.

Considering we relied more on the rules of logic to construct our use of language while NTs relied more based on social absorption I've thought maybe this is how language formed in the first place. People made "words" up based on what sounded like what they were trying to represent, but overtime social conventions would change these words. I have always thought the English language was "inadequate" for expressing my ideas and "needed more words". In humanity's early days a lot more people would've been thinking that about what ever language they spoke back then.

This also makes me wonder if there is a "natural human language". Maybe we are hard-wired to associate different sounds used in words with different feelings, emotions, and sensations in such a way that there is a natural "best word" to use for every word, but thanks to changes made to language over time we have drifted away from this.



Maolcolm
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10 Nov 2010, 1:52 am

Ever have the experience of the learned meaning of a word just sort of "disappearing" for you for a while? It can be a familiar word, but you just hear it as a sound. I've had that happen before. Not by trying to. It just happened.



chaotik_lord
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10 Nov 2010, 1:52 am

I'm very interested in your ideas on language formation.

I get words stuck in my head much the way both myself and others get music stuck in their heads . . . I had the word "Bali" rattling around like the worst earworm a few days ago, with no concept or country attached.



Jediscraps
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10 Nov 2010, 2:15 am

Unrelated, this reminded me of times I can see the picture in my head of what I want to say but can't think of the proper word to use to say what it is.

I can like the eloquent use of words but putting my thoughts into verbal words can sometimes come out messed up and confusing. And on paper time concumsing and frustrating.

I don't think I have meanings of words dissapear from me on their own. I may understand what purposely hearing the sound of a word for the sound itself is. I don't think that's unusual, but I don't know.



LeeAnderson
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10 Nov 2010, 3:42 am

Yes. I thought I was the only one. I'm quickly learning from this site that that isn't true.



DaWalker
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10 Nov 2010, 3:48 am

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypd5txtGdGw[/youtube]



ediself
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10 Nov 2010, 5:17 am

i love the word bridge :D tastes delicious. Its definition should be "apricot pie" :lol:
and yeah, i've had words sounding like the phonems in them sometimes though i don't know how it happens a word i have used for 20 years that suddently sounds off. like, no wait, is "custard"a real word? couch? really? then i repeat cus-tard and start laughing. some words are strange.



dreamwalker
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10 Nov 2010, 5:50 am

I remember thinking about the word "Schaukel" (engl. "swing") for a while as a child while sitting on an actual swing, and I thought about it so much that I lost the meaning of it. Well, I still knew in a way what it meant, bit it didn't imply this anymore and was just a mere, strange sound. So yeah, it happens.

And about words that really sound like their meaning: The fantasy author Terry Pratchett is certainly very fascinated by this. In many booky some character thinks about how words sound or should sound like what they mean, or Pratchett himself makes a remark on this phenomenon. He certainly did that in "Equal Rites" (I think it was about the word " to glisten") and in a whole bunch of his other books, too.

Edit: I watched that clip twice, and I still don't seem to hear the illusion...



ediself
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10 Nov 2010, 6:13 am

dreamwalker wrote:
I remember thinking about the word "Schaukel" (engl. "swing") for a while as a child while sitting on an actual swing, and I thought about it so much that I lost the meaning of it. Well, I still knew in a way what it meant, bit it didn't imply this anymore and was just a mere, strange sound. So yeah, it happens.

And about words that really sound like their meaning: The fantasy author Terry Pratchett is certainly very fascinated by this. In many booky some character thinks about how words sound or should sound like what they mean, or Pratchett himself makes a remark on this phenomenon. He certainly did that in "Equal Rites" (I think it was about the word " to glisten") and in a whole bunch of his other books, too.

Edit: I watched that clip twice, and I still don't seem to hear the illusion...

yeah, glisten....i didn't read that book, but glisten sure sounds like snail slime...........(edit: not the shiny look the slimey part :D)



Robdemanc
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10 Nov 2010, 7:00 am

Maolcolm wrote:
Ever have the experience of the learned meaning of a word just sort of "disappearing" for you for a while? It can be a familiar word, but you just hear it as a sound. I've had that happen before. Not by trying to. It just happened.


Yeah it happens to me a lot. The word just presents itself in isolation and I am left mulling it over thinking it doesn't even sound right. And the more I think of it the weirder it sounds. Then it goes. These experiences are a bit freaky and leave me unnerved.



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27 Nov 2010, 3:28 am

DGuru wrote:
Considering we relied more on the rules of logic to construct our use of language while NTs relied more based on social absorption I've thought maybe this is how language formed in the first place. People made "words" up based on what sounded like what they were trying to represent, but overtime social conventions would change these words. I have always thought the English language was "inadequate" for expressing my ideas and "needed more words". In humanity's early days a lot more people would've been thinking that about what ever language they spoke back then.


I don't think I used the rules of logic to learn language. Basically I always heard words as only sounds, and still do if I'm not trying with a lot of effort to hear them as words (same as I don't put ideas onto objects either). But growing up I didn't even know what words were for until quite late. And only gradually did the meaning seep in until I could finally understand them. It seemed to be more from patterns of words and patterns of sensory input, rather than logic. Logic is an idea-thing and so are words and that's why I've had problems with both of them.


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27 Nov 2010, 4:27 am

as a person with a hearing impairment...I hear words but they mostly are too vauge and sound like just sounds kinda like listening to the teacher on chairlie brown.
most of the time I have to run the sounds through my head and match up the sound with a word that it may sound like. When I get a mix-up, it can make for some really screwy conversations. My mom says she wants to write a humorous book called conversations with the hearing impaired.

Example:
Mom:Do you want some pie?

Me: what did I lie to you about?

Mom: confused look...nothing that I know of
I said do you want PIE?

Me:Ohhh pie...sure that works

Mom: with food in her mouth...did you do laundry?

Me: no I did not know the trees need watering...I will check them.

Mom: :roll: nevermind...eat your pie


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27 Nov 2010, 10:04 am

Not nowadays. I think I might've when I was very little; but really, the second I saw written words, my concept of language grew around written words rather than auditory signals. So I think of words as primarily written symbols, to the point that in some cases, when I know the words only by sight, I don't even have an auditory representation of them. In cases where I hear words that I can't translate into written words, it gets very hard for me to remember them, and they sound like jibberish.


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PunkyKat
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27 Nov 2010, 11:04 am

I did not speak until I was three or four and I think it was because I wasn't aware that words had meaning.


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