Suddenly, the words fail you. You grasp for comparisons. “It smells like old books,” or “it has a sweet, spicy scent, kind of like cinnamon.”
This struggle isn’t a personal failing; it’s a linguistic phenomenon. For most of us, there’s a profound disconnect between our powerful sense of smell and our ability to put it into words. This gap is known as the challenge of olfactory-verbal mapping, and it reveals a fascinating quirk about how most human languages have evolved.
The “Smells Like…” Problem: Our Odor-Poor Languages
In the world of linguistics, most languages, particularly those spoken in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, are considered “odor-poor.” Unlike our other senses, we lack a robust, dedicated vocabulary for smells.
Think about sight. We have a vast lexicon of abstract color words: red, blue, green, yellow, mauve, teal, crimson. These words describe a quality of light, not the object itself. We don’t have to say a fire engine is “blood-colored” or the sky is “periwinkle-colored.” We have the abstract terms red and blue.
Now consider smell. In English, nearly all our scent descriptors are source-based.
- Fruity: Smells like fruit.
- Earthy: Smells like earth or soil.
- Lemony: Smells like a lemon.
- Smoky: Smells like smoke.
Even a seemingly specific word like petrichor—the name for the pleasant smell of rain on dry ground—is a technical term borrowed from Greek, not a common word that arose organically from daily use. We’re constantly reaching for similes, comparing a new scent to an old, known one. We describe what a smell is *like*, not what it *is*.
For decades, scientists and philosophers theorized that this was a universal human trait, perhaps rooted in our biology. The prevailing idea was that the olfactory bulb in the brain had weaker connections to the language-processing centers (like Broca’s area) compared to the visual cortex. Smell, the theory went, was a primal, emotional sense, while language was a higher, more abstract function. The two were simply not well-acquainted in the human brain. But what if the problem isn’t in our brains, but in our culture and our language?
Whispers from the Rainforest: An “Odor-Rich” World
Deep in the Malay Peninsula live the Jahai people, a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers whose language turns this entire theory on its head. For the Jahai, smell isn’t a secondary sense; it’s a critical tool for survival. It helps them identify edible plants, track prey, and recognize danger in the dense rainforest environment.
Research by linguists and cognitive scientists like Asifa Majid and Niclas Burenhult has revealed that the Jahai language is incredibly “odor-rich.” They possess a dozen or so abstract scent words that function just like our words for colors. These terms describe a quality of a smell, not its source, and can be applied to many different things that share that olfactory quality.
A few examples from the Jahai lexicon include:
- Cŋɛs (pronounced ‘cheng-ess’): This describes the sharp, pungent, irritating smell of petrol, smoke, bat droppings, and certain millipedes. There’s no single source; it’s the quality of the smell that matters.
- Plʔɛŋ (pronounced ‘pla-eng’): This refers to a bloody, fishy, or meaty smell. It can be used for raw meat, a fresh kill, or a cut finger.
- Pʔus (pronounced ‘pa-oos’): This describes a musty, moldy smell, often associated with old shelters, certain mushrooms, or the air in a cave.
- Ltpit (pronounced ‘let-pit’): A term for a pleasant, fragrant aroma, often used for flowers, soap, or cooked food. It’s a general-purpose “good smell” word.
The existence of the Jahai vocabulary is a powerful counter-argument to the biological-limitation theory. It proves that humans are perfectly capable of developing and using a sophisticated, abstract language for scent. The question then becomes: why have so few cultures done so?
Can Language Train Your Nose?
The difference between the Jahai and an English speaker isn’t just vocabulary; it’s perception. In experiments, Majid and her colleagues found that Jahai speakers could name odors with the same ease and consistency that English speakers name colors. English speakers, when presented with the same smells, fumbled for words, took longer, and were far less consistent.
This points to a version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (or linguistic relativity)—the idea that the language you speak influences how you perceive and categorize the world. For the Jahai, having words like cŋɛs provides them with mental “bins” to sort smells into. This linguistic framework makes them pay closer attention to the olfactory world and allows them to identify and communicate about it with precision.
We see a similar, albeit more specialized, version of this in our own culture. Think of perfumers, sommeliers, or coffee roasters. Through intense training, they develop a highly specific vocabulary to describe their craft.
A wine taster doesn’t just say a wine is “fruity.” They might describe “notes of blackcurrant and cherry, with a hint of leather and tobacco on the finish.”
This specialized language doesn’t just sound impressive; it actively trains their brains to detect and differentiate subtle nuances of aroma and flavor that an untrained person would miss entirely. By learning the words, they learn to notice the smells. The language provides the scaffolding for a more refined sensory experience.
Reawakening Our Most Ancient Sense
The story of olfactory language tells us that our difficulty in describing smells is less a biological inevitability and more a cultural habit. In societies where smell has been de-prioritized—where our environments are sanitized and deodorized, and our survival no longer depends on our noses—our language has followed suit. We’ve let our olfactory vocabulary atrophy.
But the Jahai and the sommelier show us a different path. They prove that language can be a tool to sharpen our senses, not just describe them. It challenges us to reconsider the world around us.
So the next time you step outside after a rainstorm or catch a whiff of a forgotten spice, pause for a moment. Resist the urge to simply say it smells “good” or “like something else.” Try to find the words. Is it earthy, mineral, sharp, sweet, green, heavy? By consciously trying to build your own language of scent, you might just find you’re not just describing the world more richly—you’re experiencing it more deeply, too.
