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What's your superpower?
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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What about in different languages? Is it the same?
Yes. I mean, the letters have the same color no matter the language, but for example the word for apple in English has differnet colors than than it does in Danish.
Apple = red and a very small spot of light green.
Æble = golden brown, orange and pale yellow.
Also =
Dog = black, white, brown
Hund = brown, yellow and spring green
And
Flower = black, white, pale yellow and black.
Blomst = white, forest green, red and little sprinkles of yellow.
So the color rules are the same, but the words are combined of different letters so they will have different colors in different languages.
Some words also have tastes and textures. The word "lady" has a rich, creamy, sticky texture and tastes sweet and nutty.
The word "aldrig" (meaning "never" in Danish) tastes like mackerel and has the texture and coolness of ice cubes.
The word "everybody" tastes like apples and the word "me" has the taste and texture of wheat flour. Sometimes it makes sense, other times it is very random. "Me" makes sense because the Danish word for flour is mel and I would get that association as a small child when I listened to songs where they sang the word "me" often enough for me to notice the word. As for lady, it is the combination of sounds when you speak the word that reminds me of the creamy, sticky sensation when you're eating Nutella or hazelnut nougat. Unlike the color based synesthesia, that is visual for me - it's is the way the letters look that determines their color and not how they sound - the taste and texture based synesthesia is determined by the sounds of letters and words.
Don't get me started on numbers and the visual manifestation of the alphabet, numbers, time, dates and the calendar.
Also, what about different alphabets? Is it a thing where all characters (letters, numbers) have color? Or is it like, idk, the mental processing of "this character means the letter C. The letter C, brain tells me, I recognize as part of language. Language begets words, which begets colors"?
This is super fascinating to me. Like, if you knew the phonetic sound a Japanese hiragana character makes, would you start to see that character in the colors that correspond with roman spelling?
Like の is prounced and spelled in the Roman alphabet as "no".
Does の now have the same colors as "no"?
That is actually a very interesting question and I think it entirely depends on what senses triggers the synesthesia. For me, it is the look of the letters that determines what color they get. I still have to know what sound they make and understand what they mean and such before the colors start to come. Otherwise it is just a nonsensical pattern and my mind ignores it.
If I learned Japanese, I'm sure their writing system would have different colors to me. I can answer you on the の because it is one of the only Japanese characters I understand and know and to me it is yellow, almost a light ochre with a bit of white in it while "no" is green and white.
It would be differnet for someone who sees words in colors if their synesthesia is based on sound. To them, maybe the の would have the same color as the "no" or maybe it would be different because the English "no" is pronounced differently than the Japanese "no". But I can't give a definitive answer on that one.
!!!! Interesting. So, I guess, it's the visual processing of characters into language?
Does の have the same(-ish) color as any other letters or numbers for you?
Sorry for the continuing questions. I don't have synesthesia, but I find it incredibly fascinating, just due to how different parts of the brain are activated when interpreting sensory input.
Correct! But that is just how it is to me. Other synesthetes may process letters differently because they use sound or smell or texture or taste etc. It's a very individual thing.
I think that the ochre/yellowish color appears to me when I look at の because it reminds me of E or rather "e" and to me E/e is a pale yellow. I'm definitely informed by my established understanding of letters in the Roman alphabet, but the color isn't a one to one copy paste because の and e are still different enough that the colors will be different too.
I started teaching myself the Cyrillic alphabet a few years ago, but got busy with life so I have since forgotten most of it again, but I do remember some of the letters taking on interesting colors for me. Most of the letters in the Cyrillic alphabet LOOK like Roman letters even if they have completely different sounds so many of them just get the color from the Roman alphabet, but some of them are just different enough that the color is unique to them. Correct! But that is just how it is to me. Other synesthetes may process letters differently because they use sound or smell or texture or taste etc. It's a very individual thing.
I think that the ochre/yellowish color appears to me when I look at の because it reminds me of E or rather "e" and to me E/e is a pale yellow. I'm definitely informed by my established understanding of letters in the Roman alphabet, but the color isn't a one to one copy paste because の and e are still different enough that the colors will be different too.
I started teaching myself the Cyrillic alphabet a few years ago, but got busy with life so I have since forgotten most of it again, but I do remember some of the letters taking on interesting colors for me. Most of the letters in the Cyrillic alphabet LOOK like Roman letters even if they have completely different sounds so many of them just get the color from the Roman alphabet, but some of them don't really look like Roman letters and while I was learning, they started to take on their own unique color. Since I still don't have a solid grasp on the Cyrillic alphabet, the colors are also very flimsy and hard to pin down. In the same way that it is hard for me currently to remember what sound goes with what letter.
But л which has the L sound, generally tends to flicker yellow and reddish pink to me atm. Maybe if I got really good at Cyrillic, it would become more yellow or more reddish pink or maybe, as my understanding of the letters grow, it will take a completely different color? I don't know. I haven't learned a - to me - foreign alphabet with language well enough to be able to tell you what happens there. I also don't remember how colors of the Roman letters were formed for me because when I learned to read and write I was a kid and I didn't know that how my brain works was a bit different in some areas so I guess the colors just came gradually and naturally and I didn't think about it until probably my early 20s when I had a history teacher who randomly brought the topic up in class and asked us if we saw colors when we look at letters and words. Me: oh yeah, but don't everybody?
Also, don't apologize for asking questions :D