OMG MY TIME HAS COME.
ok so kiki and bouba are not necessarily those two guys. those pictures were part of an experiment about how we attach sound to objects. the scientists showed participants the two pictures and asked them which was kiki and which was bouba. the study with kiki and bouba took place in 2001 with two groups of subjects on opposite sides of the world, and a huge majority assigned kiki to the spiky guy and bouba to the round one!!
the kiki bouba thing is interesting because it shows that some sound to object relationships are not arbitrary! there are cool human brain associations we have formed! why? I dont know im not that smart. ask a linguist. here's the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
I love when I say shit and it triggers and unskippable exposition cutscene.
My guess would be similar to like, “bam” and “snick” or “quack” those kinds of words where when you say them they sound like actual noises things make. The name of them escapes me
But like. Kiki is a strong sharp consonant and a short sharp vowel, so it sounds staccato and pointed. And bouba has a lot of really open, rounded vowels and softer consonant noises. This might be a music theory thing I’m half remembering but it’s how it makes sense to me.
