Bouba Kiki

• In anthropology (and closely related fields like psychology and linguistics), bouba / kiki refers to the Bouba–Kiki effect: a robust cross-cultural tendency for people to associate certain sounds with certain shapes.
• 

• The basic finding

  • When shown two shapes—one rounded, one spiky—and asked which is called bouba and which is kiki:
    • Bouba → rounded, soft, blobby shape
    • Kiki → sharp, angular, spiky shape
  • This holds across:
    • languages
    • cultures
    • ages (including young children)
    • even among people with little exposure to Western writing systems

• Where it comes from

  • The effect was first observed by Person/Wolfgang Köhler in the 1920s (originally using takete and maluma). Later replications standardized bouba/kiki.