Universal primitive lexicon / yummy yummy

Friday, May 16, 2008

There's been some discussion on Auxlang recently about whether some words are somehow universally palatable or valid to people, which is the reason why logical languages might not work at a gut level. That is, that certain words just sound like they mean a certain thing - words like slippery, squeak, kaboom, yaong (meow in Korean), mama (mom), and so on. The term 'universal primitive lexicon' (don't know if that's an official term or not) came from Jens, who has been writing a bit recently about this universal origin of words.

There's a really interesting video on YouTube of a cat growling while eating her (I'll assume it's a female) food, and as she opens her mouth to eat it sounds like she's saying yummy yummy:



(it's also hilarious)

When you think about it, if you say a long aaaahhhh, then say it while chewing your food and opening and closing your mouth at the same time, you come out with a sound like yummy yummy. Koreans say nyam nyam; lots of other languages have nearly the same thing. So there's a large possibility that a word like this simply came from the sound you make while eating.

So, does it help to watch animals in action to determine this lexicon?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't forget "num-nums" from english baby talk. And of course "nom nom nom" from LOLcat.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget "num-nums" from english baby talk. And of course "nom nom nom" from LOLcat.

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