The Lexical Typology of Sensory Perception

Sensory language has fascinated researchers, as it is here that meaning most clearly straddles biology and culture. Since the seminal work on color vocabularies, typologists have attempted to describe and explain worldwide linguistic patterns in this area. One proposal that has captured the attention of many is the idea that there is a hierarchy of the senses that can account for phenomena as diverse as lexicalization patterns, frequency of use, diachronic stability, order of acquisition, and more. We argue, to the contrary, that a universal sensory hierarchy is no longer tenable. Emerging crosslinguistic data do not support a single hierarchy of the senses that is applicable across distinct linguistic and psycholinguistic properties. This does not mean we must abandon sensory language typology altogether. Alternative methods for identifying crosslinguistic regularities—such as semantic maps—show considerable promise. Moreover, while the preoccupation with a sensory hierarchy has led to an overly narrow research focus, moving beyond it opens up new avenues of research in this area. Future research has potential to uncover new patterns of sensory language structure and use across diverse languages, account for their distribution over cultures, and deepen our understanding of how language interfaces with cognition.