Why we cannot describe odours better than what we see
When we describe an apple, we say it is red and has a round shape. It tastes a little sweet and a little tart and crisp. And it smells like…an apple. When we describe the colour of an apple, we can say “it looks red” rather than saying “it looks like a banana.” When it comes to olfactory, there are only three words dedicated to smell: stinky, fragrant, and musty. Apart from using these three words, we often describe scents by mentioning the source of the smell. Even though humans have around 400 different types of receptors for identifying odorant molecules, we rarely have a specific name for describing scents (Williams, 2014). People working in the wine tasting or perfume industries may use “decadent” or “unctuous” to describe smells; however, those are not common words in general.
Lacking a smell vocabulary makes us difficult to describe scents. Some experts (Rouby et al., 2002) argue that smells are inherently indescribable and that olfactory abstraction is impossible. However, according to Asifa Majid (n.d., cited in Yong, 2015), hunter-gatherers in South Asia have around 12 to 15 words dedicated to smells.
Hunter-gatherers describe odours far better than we do
Being unable to describe smells is not universal. In South Asia, two groups of hunter-gatherers – the Jahai people of Malaysia and Maniq in Thailand – have been found to be able to name and describe odors easily and consistently without any verbal struggles (Majid and Burenhult, 2014). They do not have to access the source of the smell when describing it. Instead, they use a specific name for a particular smell. For example, the term “Ltpit” indicates the smell of a binturong, which is an animal that looks like a shaggy and black-furred otter that smells like popcorn. Moreover, they also have certain words to explain the smell of bat droppings, smoke, millipedes, the wood of wild mango, and so forth. For the Jahai, the stem and petrol of a flower are different smells, indicating that one object, one smell does not apply to them. In that way, they turned out to have an excellent ability to distinguish smells as well.
Dr. Kruspe (n.d., cited in Klein, 2018) pointed out that a cultural preoccupation with smells is convenient with limited vision in the forest. Miller (2014) mentions that people who have a rich olfactory vocabulary are those who need to use their noses to survive. Having a good sense of smell and terms to describe them might be associated with their culture and environment; furthermore, without continuing to use the ability to detect smells, it could gradually be lost.
Conclusion
Describing smells without mentioning the source of the scents was thought to be almost impossible. However, the people of Jahai and Maniqu, who use their noses to make a living have specific names for specific smells. Further investigating those hunter-gatherers might reveal the secret of the evolution of our olfactory sense.
Reference
Williams, S. (2014). Human Nose Can Detect a Trillion Smells. [online] www.science.org. Available at: https://www.science.org/content/article/human-nose-can-detect-trillion-smells [Accessed 24 Jun. 2022].
Rouby, C., Schaal, B., Dubois, D., Gervais, R. and Holley, A. (2002). Olfaction, Taste, and Cognition. [online] Google Books. Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Zpc2HbWbgTIC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=olfactory+abstraction+is+impossible&source=bl&ots=SQ0eweKJc8&sig=SrlHDhBZYlO3Sb5nStaNZd0NxV8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAmoVChMI4ujf1uD7yAIVw-wUCh1iNgrc#v=onepage&q&f=false [Accessed 26 June 2022].
Yong, E. (2015). Why Do Most Languages Have So Few Words for Smells? [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/the-vocabulary-of-smell/414618/ [Accessed 26 June 2022].
Majid, A. and Burenhult, N. (2014). Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the right language. Cognition, 130(2), pp.266–270. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.004.
Klein, J. (2018). They Hunt. They Gather. They’re Very Good at Talking About Smells. The New York Times. [online] 19 Jan. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/science/smells-descriptions-hunter-gatherers.html [Accessed 26 June 2022].
Miller, G. (2014). What’s Up With That: Why Are Smells So Difficult to Describe in Words? [online] Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2014/11/whats-up-with-that-smells-language/ [Accessed 26 June 2022].
