Which Is “Bouba”, and Which Is “Kiki”?
Sooner or later, I was going to get around to this: it’s one of the most famous experiments in linguistics. •
Written with Molly Ruhl and Gretchen McCulloch. Gretchen’s podcast has an episode all about this: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/175127434871/lingthusiasm-episode-21-what-words-sound-spiky
Gretchen’s book BECAUSE INTERNET, all about the evolution of internet language, is available:
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(Those are affiliate links that give a commission to me or Gretchen, depending on country!)
Graphics by William Marler: https://wmad.co.uk
Audio mix by Graham Haerther: https://haerther.net
REFERENCES:
Köhler, W. (1929). Gestalt Psychology. New York: Liveright.
Ramachandran, V. S., Hubbard, E. M. (2001) Synaesthesia—A window into perception, thought and language. Journal of Consciousness Studies 8: 3–34.
Berlin, B. (1994). Evidence for pervasive synesthetic sound symbolism in ethnozoological nomenclature. In L. Hinton, J. Nichols & J. Ohala (Eds.), Sound symbolism (pp. 76 – 93). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Davis, R. (1961). The fitness of names to drawings. a cross-cultural study in Tanganyika. Br. J. Psychol. 52, 259–268. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1961.tb00788.x,
Ramachandran, V. S., and Hubbard, E. M. (2001). Synaesthesia—a window into perception, thought and language. J. Conscious. Stud. 8, 3–34.,
Koriat, A., & Levy, I. (1979). Figural symbolism in Chinese ideographs. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 8 (4), 353 – 365.
Maurer, D., Pathman, T., Mondloch, C.J. (2006). The shape of boubas: sound-shape correspondences in toddlers and adults. Developmental science, Vol.9 (3), p.316-322,
Nielsen, A., and Rendall, D. (2011). The sound of round: evaluating the sound-symbolic role of consonants in the classic Takete-Maluma phenomenon. Can. J. Exp. Psychol. 65, 115–124. doi: 10.1037/a0022268,
Bremner, A. J., Caparos, S., Davidoff, J., de Fockert, J., Linnell, K. J., and Spence, C. (2013). “Bouba” and “Kiki” in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape-sound matches, but different shape-taste matches to Westerners. Cognition 126, 165–172. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.09.007
De Saussure, F. (2011, republished from 1916). Course in general linguistics. Columbia University Press.
Styles, S.J., & Gawne, L. (2017). When Does Maluma/Takete Fail? Two Key Failures and a Meta-Analysis Suggest That Phonology and Phonotactics Matter. I-Perception, 8(4), 2041669517724807.
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@TomScottGo
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Thanks to all the team who work with me on these! This is very much a collective effort these days, despite me being the face of it. Please do pull down the description to see everyone involved, and all the references!
@clementdetellier5698
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
BaBa is KeKe
@fomalhaut5
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Bouba is a woody word and Kiki is a tinny word.
@edanro9787
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Birds are fish, fish is a broader category including tetrapods, actinopterygians, coelacanths, lunged fish, acanthodians, psarolepids and other animals.
@Beowulfs_Space
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Thank you Tom Scott
@avakining
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
3:20 ok but ŋoba is clearly rounder than tlet. Tlet is so clearly sharp and pointy.
@sethumadhavanparapurathu8598
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
1:13 i got 4/5
@RossoPilled
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Is there a Bouba's Delivery Service?
@Akarieeeeeeeeeeea
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Why did i give Kiki to the blue shape because i found "Kiki" cuter than "Bouba" and i found the Blue shale cuter than the red one-?
@BlueIsTheEditor
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Sprunki Kiki and Bouba Ahh moment
@mikewatman5445
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Who’s here from the song 「Boom, but Kick it!」? Finally, Bouba and Kiki got an absolute banger!
@MegaMonkeVr
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
K has more points B has more round edges so Bouba is the rounded one and Kiki is the sharp one
@MichalKroll72
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Ive observed this phenomena while studying arabic, my native language is Polsh but there are some words in arabic which are neither similar or anything but you could sort of understand it by just hearing them which is weird.
Take the pairs
1. a) Kasir
b) Tawiil
Guess which one means LONG and which means SHORT
2. a) Saliim
b) Maksur
Guess which one means NOT BROKEN and which means BROKEN
If you guessed KASIR = SHORT, TAWIIL = LONG, SALIIM = GOOD, MAKSUR = BROKEN. You're right and you propably dont even know arabic
@navyntune8158
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
BOU IS YOU
BA
@SamuraiCake42
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
As an English speaker: ŋoba is round and tlet is sharp.
@Sub-spaceTripmine
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
if the pointy one was bouba for you, consider yourself an opp
@kyle_8q
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
I see joy and sadness abstracting
@maroonluckyblockgames7062
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
I thought kiki wouldve been yellow or green but ok
@oreo.commenter1
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
2:06 freaky
@jadenruanes1858
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
The thumbnail changed, so, he’s not gone.
@atlanderwrites
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
I just noticed (with no scientific backup) that some fish like “shark”, “pike”, “stickleback”, etc have more pointy or dangerous bits than “salmon”, “turbot” or “carp”…though some pointy fish (“pufferfish” comes to mind) don’t fit the mould. Thoughts?
@cocomonkilla
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Synesthetes for the win
@davidreinhard6037
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
why did Drake write a song about that shape
@Nyaalexi
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
I saw a Tweet about this a while back, I didn't understand it at all, and now it finally makes sense.
@funahead6351
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
This reason why I everytime messed up the words thin and thick. English not my native language
@floor413
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Thanks Arin.
@makb_the_striker
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
When we study polygraphs, we say they are BS, because they have effectiveness around 60% – 5% more than guessing. But when some people have got 3% over guessing rating it's statistically significant?
@C0n0li0
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Tag yourself are you a kiki or are you a bouba
@hiranpeiris877
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Jg😊
@vayne06
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Pikachu isn't sharp!
@avery-c5n
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
ngoba is the round shape and tlet is the sharp shape
@bobjoe258
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
tapioca be like
@sagrgywejhxcvx
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
t1ts
@SavvySequoia
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
1:00 Let me take part in the game as well, before I continue on the video.
Bird – chunchuíkit, takákit, áau, kumpáu and wahák.
Fish – máuts, terás, tsapáum, shíru and hápatar.
Edit: Average is 58% right. Mine is 40%. Close enough, interesting video.
@jackbeavis
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Wait aren't those the main characters in Baba is you? Nice!
@spagussy
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
heh, "bouba"
@Khantia
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Bouba reminds me of bulb, so I picked the rounder shape for it cuz of that 😛
@MaryAnnNytowl
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
In case anyone's interested, there's a SciShow (a Tangents) about this, done around the same time. I don't know exactly, but this says 3 yrs, and the SciShow video says 3 years, too. Maybe someone will want to watch it, too?
Yes, I know this is several years old. I'm still gonna feed the Almighty Algorithm, anyway.
@Keurosaur
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
* Research JOURNALS often don't publish negative results. Most researchers would love it if they could get zero-result papers out there, but those don't attract readers as much for the publisher. Thanks capitalism.
@catcatcat124
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
why tf do you not know spikey is kiki bouba is the curvy
@hyun-shik7327
August 25, 2025 at 2:50 pm
Tom Scott talks about bouba for about 4 minutes and 20 seconds:
Comments are closed.