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Language as a model relating to odour quality
Atmospheric Environment Pergamon Press 1973. Vol. 7, pp. 369-371. Printed in Great Britain.
LETTER LANGUAGE
TO THE EDITORS
AS A MODEL RELATING
TO ODOUR
QUALITY
(First received 10 August 1972 and in jikal form 23 October 1972)
Ahstract4dour is considered as a message @formation) conveying system. Olfaction differs from visual and auditive perception because, (a) some of the olfactive messages are hereditary but (b) at least at human level, some or all stimuli have a changing, contextual meaning. This second aspect suggests analogies to language. In this sense, it is postulated that chemically complex, message-conveying scents, bear analogy to sentences and that sensory excitation due to pure chemical species, is similar to words, conveying mostly no meaning by themselves. Purely physical investigation methods break the message down. The present approach recommends that one should look for “olphemes” (the olfactory equivalent to phonemes) by methods borrowed perhaps from linguistics or from cryptanalysis.
To FURTHERthe comprehension of olfaction, analogies are very often sought. Comparison with the other senses: audition, colour-vision is often employed. Bi-or, multi-dimensional geometrical representations (e.g. Henning’s odour prism) is also a recurring idea. Since Aristotle through Linnaeus and to the present day, numerous systems for odour description and odour classifkation have been proposed. Nevertheless, a recent and remarkable review of this topic by HARPER, BATE-SMITHand LAND (1968) states on p. 63 that “Surely there must be some basic premise which is incorrect . . . (in producing a generally acceptable ordering) . . .“. While the present approach might only add one more attempt to the many already existing, its somewhat different point of view could perhaps stimulate multidisciplinary research and thus contribute to odour description. The basic difference between odour on the one hand and colour, sound . . . on the other is that the former conveys a meaning while the latter does not. An attempt to analyse the “‘messages” conveyed by odours will follow; but it seems clear that, a colour-grammatically an adjcctivebecomes message-bearing only in association with geometrical form or by previous agreement. The same is true for individually isolated sounds. Besides the very precise message-bearing pheromones of the insect world (these alone would be adequate justifications of the approach outlined here), one can roughly classify the following messages conveyed by smell on the general animal (mammalian) level: Danger, Blood. Only for herbivorous animals; faeces--their own-only for carnivores, as it attracts enemies; for most species, the odour of the identical sex, during the rut; putrid, identical with nonedible (except for carrion-eaters), etc. Edible. Grass, fruits . . . for herbivorous and omnivorous animals; meat, blood, for carnivores. Sexual. Sweat and expressly sexual odours of the opposite sex, only of the same species and restricted mostly to the mating period. Zndifirerrt. “Message not understood”: flower odours for carnivores; their own excrements for the herbivores (as there is no danger in not concealing them, in contrast to felines). While perceived, these odours carry no message for the species; they are as utterings in a foreign language would be to humans. These are four basic messages, instinctive in most animals and unerringly inducing the corresponding action: Danger-Fear, flight, fight. Edibls-Eating if and only if hungry. Sexual-Mating when in rut. No messag~IndifTerence, anyway none of the above reactions. Thus, the semantic model of the animal olfactory universe is relatively uncomplicated: given species, sex and physiological condition, the stimuli are interpreted only in one of these categories. A.%713-I
369
370
Letter to the Editors
One recognizes that the message-interpretation is already conditioned by the context: eating or salivation will occur only if the animal is hungry, mating only if it is in rut. At the highest mammalian level (mostly in domesticated animals), one recognizes also the ability of identification, that is a more precise address, which takes the form of the discrimination of two or more foods and most significantly, the recognition of the different family members by pets. This fact introduces perhaps a fifth category which might be called “addresses” and leads directly to the human behaviour. The two main characteristics of the olfaction, vis. the message-conveying property and the contextual variability of the message, place this faculty along side the only other human function showing these properties i.e. the language. Language is certainly the most sophisticated human manifestation, a vehicle for innumerable messages. The olfactory sense -shared at prehuman level with most animalsdonveys only the few simple messages justified by the survival of the species, and has remained basically unchanged, (although somewhat atrophied, according to some authors). The difficulties in the comprehension of human olfaction, stem mostly from the tremendous and rapid message-interpretation ability of our race. Education, habits and learning change very rapidly the context and with it the interpretation, thus obscuring boundaries. (It should be stressed here that this is no statement about the relative olfactory acuity of animals and humans.) Young children almost never appreciate ripe cheese but later on people learn to assimilate quite a few putrid odours with the edible category. By conditioning, use of perfumes, floral odours, conveying no message at the anthropoid level, become sexually stimulating. The number of “addresses”, i.e. odours identifiable with an object category, became tremendous, not because of improved sensory discrimination but because of available memory space. A specitically human function appears, which is the translation of the relatively simple animal odouruniverse into exclusively human message-conveying media, one of which is speech. Thus, human odour classification becomes almost as complex as the attempt to classify the ensemble of the meaningful sentences of a language. Instead of the basic message: “Putrid = danger!“, we perceive for instance the olfactory sentence: “Here is a ripe camembert cheese”. Just this sentence which is different from any other: not an unripe cheese, not an apple, not etc, etc. As every air pollution specialist knows, people generally retain the basic reaction, putting any not definitely known odour into the “danger” category. Should this semantical model of olfaction be continued one might surmise that chemically complex, message-conveying scents are like sentences and that sensory excitation due to pure chemical species are analogous to the words, not conveying a meaning by themselves. They become meaningful only from the context. If this is accepted, then “odour-classifications” or “odour-dictionaries”-based on chemical species of ever higher purity-have as much sense or just as little as word-dictionaries. One is inclined to think that language-dictionaries, i.e. words listed by their first letter in alphabetical order-if not conveying message-are at least very handy for deciphering. This may be true for alphabetically written Indo-European languages such as we are used to but the nice alphabetical order is almost useless for agglutinant, prefix-rich languages such as the semitic ones and utterly useless for Chinese ideograms. The lexical breakdown into words is potentially useful but semantically not explanatory. A sentence, broken down into words, conveys no meaning. Unfortunately, linguistic research cannot yet tell what exactly conveys meaning and thus it is of no use to look there for analogies. We maintain only that a spoken sentence can be shortened, lengthened, pronounced slowly or quickly, in high pitch by a child or by a woman, in low pitch by a man; that it can be dialectically distorted, syntactically or lexically modified and still be unchanged in meaning. That is also true for the odour-message which bears lots of chemical modifications, interference before becoming “unintelligible”, i.e. losing its meaning. The problem of odour-classification is equivalent to a classification of meaningful sentences. Actually, this is beyond the means of today’s possibilities in linguistics. Nevertheless, the comprehension of the olfactory universe is linked to the analysis of the meaning conveyed by the odours and thus needs the olfactory equivalent of the linguist or the semanticist, who would then conveniently be called an “olfacticist”. When analysing olfaction problems, we thus adopt PIKE’s (1971) theory, involving the application of linguistic principles to other areas of human behaviour besides language. Expressed in words coined by Pike, most known research about odour such as measurement, cla.&Scation, description, their correlation with molecular properties, etc. belongs to the “etic”, i.e. the objective category. “Etic” is the generalization of “phonetic” when used outside of conventional linguistics. The present letter stresses the “emic”, i.e. the functionally important aspect of olfaction. “Emlc” is also a term of Pike, derived in analogous way from “phonemic”. Consequently,
Letter to the Editors
371
the goal of “emit” research on odour quality would be the olfactory equivalent of phonemes, in this case conveniently called “olphemes”. Physico-chemical, spectroscopical and other like methods can be only of limited use for the “olfacticist”, just as the “acustician” is for the linguist. The meaning of sentences will never be understood from the frequency spectra of the constituent phonemes, not even by their vocabulary. In this way, the comprehension of olfaction, becomes comparable to the deciphering of some antique script. In the latter case, a fair assumption about the language was almost always the first requisite, the second one being the identification of some meaningful fragments. e.g. in the case of Cuneiform, the expression “King of Kings” was this clue. From this point on, only 57 years of effort was required for the full deciphering. In the case. of odours, perhaps the basic messages on animal level could furnish such a clue. Unfortunately, they are not very numerous and one wonders how they could be extended. The following problem-and not the least-would be the step from the primitive animal “language” to the unbelievable richness of the human one. MICHAEL M. BENARIE
Part de Lormoy G/2 91240 St. Michel s/Orge France REFERENCES
HARPER R., BATE-SMITHE. C. and LAND D. G. (1968) Odour Description and Odour Classification.
p. 63. Churchill, London. PIKE K. T. (1971) Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior.
pp. 37, 121, 290. Mouton, The Hague.
LETTER LANGUAGE
TO THE EDITORS
AS A MODEL RELATING
TO ODOUR
QUALITY
(First received 10 August 1972 and in jikal form 23 October 1972)
Ahstract4dour is considered as a message @formation) conveying system. Olfaction differs from visual and auditive perception because, (a) some of the olfactive messages are hereditary but (b) at least at human level, some or all stimuli have a changing, contextual meaning. This second aspect suggests analogies to language. In this sense, it is postulated that chemically complex, message-conveying scents, bear analogy to sentences and that sensory excitation due to pure chemical species, is similar to words, conveying mostly no meaning by themselves. Purely physical investigation methods break the message down. The present approach recommends that one should look for “olphemes” (the olfactory equivalent to phonemes) by methods borrowed perhaps from linguistics or from cryptanalysis.
To FURTHERthe comprehension of olfaction, analogies are very often sought. Comparison with the other senses: audition, colour-vision is often employed. Bi-or, multi-dimensional geometrical representations (e.g. Henning’s odour prism) is also a recurring idea. Since Aristotle through Linnaeus and to the present day, numerous systems for odour description and odour classifkation have been proposed. Nevertheless, a recent and remarkable review of this topic by HARPER, BATE-SMITHand LAND (1968) states on p. 63 that “Surely there must be some basic premise which is incorrect . . . (in producing a generally acceptable ordering) . . .“. While the present approach might only add one more attempt to the many already existing, its somewhat different point of view could perhaps stimulate multidisciplinary research and thus contribute to odour description. The basic difference between odour on the one hand and colour, sound . . . on the other is that the former conveys a meaning while the latter does not. An attempt to analyse the “‘messages” conveyed by odours will follow; but it seems clear that, a colour-grammatically an adjcctivebecomes message-bearing only in association with geometrical form or by previous agreement. The same is true for individually isolated sounds. Besides the very precise message-bearing pheromones of the insect world (these alone would be adequate justifications of the approach outlined here), one can roughly classify the following messages conveyed by smell on the general animal (mammalian) level: Danger, Blood. Only for herbivorous animals; faeces--their own-only for carnivores, as it attracts enemies; for most species, the odour of the identical sex, during the rut; putrid, identical with nonedible (except for carrion-eaters), etc. Edible. Grass, fruits . . . for herbivorous and omnivorous animals; meat, blood, for carnivores. Sexual. Sweat and expressly sexual odours of the opposite sex, only of the same species and restricted mostly to the mating period. Zndifirerrt. “Message not understood”: flower odours for carnivores; their own excrements for the herbivores (as there is no danger in not concealing them, in contrast to felines). While perceived, these odours carry no message for the species; they are as utterings in a foreign language would be to humans. These are four basic messages, instinctive in most animals and unerringly inducing the corresponding action: Danger-Fear, flight, fight. Edibls-Eating if and only if hungry. Sexual-Mating when in rut. No messag~IndifTerence, anyway none of the above reactions. Thus, the semantic model of the animal olfactory universe is relatively uncomplicated: given species, sex and physiological condition, the stimuli are interpreted only in one of these categories. A.%713-I
369
370
Letter to the Editors
One recognizes that the message-interpretation is already conditioned by the context: eating or salivation will occur only if the animal is hungry, mating only if it is in rut. At the highest mammalian level (mostly in domesticated animals), one recognizes also the ability of identification, that is a more precise address, which takes the form of the discrimination of two or more foods and most significantly, the recognition of the different family members by pets. This fact introduces perhaps a fifth category which might be called “addresses” and leads directly to the human behaviour. The two main characteristics of the olfaction, vis. the message-conveying property and the contextual variability of the message, place this faculty along side the only other human function showing these properties i.e. the language. Language is certainly the most sophisticated human manifestation, a vehicle for innumerable messages. The olfactory sense -shared at prehuman level with most animalsdonveys only the few simple messages justified by the survival of the species, and has remained basically unchanged, (although somewhat atrophied, according to some authors). The difficulties in the comprehension of human olfaction, stem mostly from the tremendous and rapid message-interpretation ability of our race. Education, habits and learning change very rapidly the context and with it the interpretation, thus obscuring boundaries. (It should be stressed here that this is no statement about the relative olfactory acuity of animals and humans.) Young children almost never appreciate ripe cheese but later on people learn to assimilate quite a few putrid odours with the edible category. By conditioning, use of perfumes, floral odours, conveying no message at the anthropoid level, become sexually stimulating. The number of “addresses”, i.e. odours identifiable with an object category, became tremendous, not because of improved sensory discrimination but because of available memory space. A specitically human function appears, which is the translation of the relatively simple animal odouruniverse into exclusively human message-conveying media, one of which is speech. Thus, human odour classification becomes almost as complex as the attempt to classify the ensemble of the meaningful sentences of a language. Instead of the basic message: “Putrid = danger!“, we perceive for instance the olfactory sentence: “Here is a ripe camembert cheese”. Just this sentence which is different from any other: not an unripe cheese, not an apple, not etc, etc. As every air pollution specialist knows, people generally retain the basic reaction, putting any not definitely known odour into the “danger” category. Should this semantical model of olfaction be continued one might surmise that chemically complex, message-conveying scents are like sentences and that sensory excitation due to pure chemical species are analogous to the words, not conveying a meaning by themselves. They become meaningful only from the context. If this is accepted, then “odour-classifications” or “odour-dictionaries”-based on chemical species of ever higher purity-have as much sense or just as little as word-dictionaries. One is inclined to think that language-dictionaries, i.e. words listed by their first letter in alphabetical order-if not conveying message-are at least very handy for deciphering. This may be true for alphabetically written Indo-European languages such as we are used to but the nice alphabetical order is almost useless for agglutinant, prefix-rich languages such as the semitic ones and utterly useless for Chinese ideograms. The lexical breakdown into words is potentially useful but semantically not explanatory. A sentence, broken down into words, conveys no meaning. Unfortunately, linguistic research cannot yet tell what exactly conveys meaning and thus it is of no use to look there for analogies. We maintain only that a spoken sentence can be shortened, lengthened, pronounced slowly or quickly, in high pitch by a child or by a woman, in low pitch by a man; that it can be dialectically distorted, syntactically or lexically modified and still be unchanged in meaning. That is also true for the odour-message which bears lots of chemical modifications, interference before becoming “unintelligible”, i.e. losing its meaning. The problem of odour-classification is equivalent to a classification of meaningful sentences. Actually, this is beyond the means of today’s possibilities in linguistics. Nevertheless, the comprehension of the olfactory universe is linked to the analysis of the meaning conveyed by the odours and thus needs the olfactory equivalent of the linguist or the semanticist, who would then conveniently be called an “olfacticist”. When analysing olfaction problems, we thus adopt PIKE’s (1971) theory, involving the application of linguistic principles to other areas of human behaviour besides language. Expressed in words coined by Pike, most known research about odour such as measurement, cla.&Scation, description, their correlation with molecular properties, etc. belongs to the “etic”, i.e. the objective category. “Etic” is the generalization of “phonetic” when used outside of conventional linguistics. The present letter stresses the “emic”, i.e. the functionally important aspect of olfaction. “Emlc” is also a term of Pike, derived in analogous way from “phonemic”. Consequently,
Letter to the Editors
371
the goal of “emit” research on odour quality would be the olfactory equivalent of phonemes, in this case conveniently called “olphemes”. Physico-chemical, spectroscopical and other like methods can be only of limited use for the “olfacticist”, just as the “acustician” is for the linguist. The meaning of sentences will never be understood from the frequency spectra of the constituent phonemes, not even by their vocabulary. In this way, the comprehension of olfaction, becomes comparable to the deciphering of some antique script. In the latter case, a fair assumption about the language was almost always the first requisite, the second one being the identification of some meaningful fragments. e.g. in the case of Cuneiform, the expression “King of Kings” was this clue. From this point on, only 57 years of effort was required for the full deciphering. In the case. of odours, perhaps the basic messages on animal level could furnish such a clue. Unfortunately, they are not very numerous and one wonders how they could be extended. The following problem-and not the least-would be the step from the primitive animal “language” to the unbelievable richness of the human one. MICHAEL M. BENARIE
Part de Lormoy G/2 91240 St. Michel s/Orge France REFERENCES
HARPER R., BATE-SMITHE. C. and LAND D. G. (1968) Odour Description and Odour Classification.
p. 63. Churchill, London. PIKE K. T. (1971) Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior.
pp. 37, 121, 290. Mouton, The Hague.