Which shape above is the bouba?
BBC News has a medium-length article (with videos!) about some science showing that we all have the ability for some kind of synesthesia.
Some words just SEEM to represent a rounded shape rather than an angular one. Others just seem to represent a sour taste more than a sweet one.
UPDATE: I didn’t think of this before, but this reminds me of Roy Blount Jr. and his book Alphabet Juice (read an excerpt and hear an interview here). In the book, he says that most (or many) words aren’t randomly attached to meanings, but that they somehow fit what they represent and couldn’t be something else.
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