Have you ever wondered what your senses would make of a language if they could?
If a language could be felt, seen, tasted, or smelled — what would that be like?
Interesting, right?
How it started
This was a question for contributions to a podcast I’m part of. And for me, the language was Shona.
So some background. In July 2023, I was pleasantly surprised when I received an invitation to contribute to a video podcast by the research project Recalibrating Afrikanistik, titled Afrikanists Assemble.
Each month, the producers send out a question to everyone involved. Our task is to respond, preferably in an African language. The goal: to reflect on African languages not as abstract systems, but as living, sensory, emotional experiences.
This month’s question caught my attention, and I was curious what others — beyond myself — might say.
Here’s the question they gave:
“If an African language you’re familiar with (Shona in my case) could be smelled, tasted, felt, and seen — what would that experience be like?”
The first person I asked was my daughter, and this is how she responded:
👅 Tasted — rice and dovi (peanut butter)
👃🏾 Smelled — dust
👀 Seen — brown
✋🏾 Felt — coarse
‘Huh? Just… all brown?’ I laughed.
That’s when I decided to take the question to a larger audience. I took it to Facebook — and the responses were fascinating.
Voices from the community
Follower 1:
- Taste: sadza and roadrunner (indigenous, free-range chicken), an absolute treat but you must get dirty for it.
- Colour: bronze, with a shiny element — not just brown.
- Feel: like clay … situational, but once it’s set, it is set.
She added:
‘I just ran your question past my colleagues, and they say if Shona had a smell, it would be the smell of the earth after the rains.’
Sadza is a Zimbabwean staple — a thick porridge made from maize, millet, or sorghum.
Follower 2:
- Taste: manhuchu ane dovi achidzikiswa ne cup ye Tanganda tea yagadzirwa nemvura yepachoto iri kunzwira mukaka wakamwa kuseni kuno.
- Colour: soft green colour of grass in the morning after rain.
- Smell: huswa hwanaiwa.
- Feel: as soft as wool.
Translation: ‘It would taste like mealie-rice with peanut butter, served with Tanganda tea made over a fire, rich with fresh morning milk. The soft green colour of grass in the morning after rain, smell of wet grass, and soft as wool.’
Follower 3:
- Taste: sadza ne haifiridzi (beef with leafy greens).
- Smell: sadza cooked over a fire at a a funeral.
- Seen: beige — not too brown, not too white.
- Felt: like a two-in-one blanket — soft, heavy, and warm, nothing like a duvet.
Follower 4:
- Taste: porridge rezviyo with dovi (millet porridge with peanut butter).
- Smell: earth after rain.
- Seen: green, like the African savannah.
- Felt: earthy, like the texture of soil and stones underfoot.
Zviyo is a cereal crop used for making staple sadza and porridge.
What I learned from the feedback
As I read through the responses, I was struck by how consistent the emotional register was, even though the details differed.
Things that came to mind for me: nostalgia, earthiness, home, authenticity, organic, traditional, indigenous.
1. Nostalgia
There’s a sense of memory — a beautiful one — in many of the descriptions, with traditional foods that evoke family life and the world around it. Words like sadza, roadrunner, porridge rezviyo, and Tanganda tea reach back to childhood kitchens, the rhythm of family, and the comforting familiarity of home.
2. Earthiness
Elements associated with nature and the earth came up often — earth after rain, wet morning grass, dust. Shona, as a language, is connected to the land — literally and metaphorically. The smell of the earth signals both beginning and belonging.
3. Home
Colours were mostly brown, bronze, green, and beige — muted, enduring, not flashy. They speak of stability, history, and lived experience.
4. Authenticity
The ‘feel’ of Shona was described as clay, coarse, heavy, warm, earthy. Nothing smooth or artificial. The language feels handmade — textured, alive, real.
5. Organic
Shona is experienced as part of an ecosystem: food, rain, soil. It grows, breathes, and evolves — like a plant sprouting new leaves.
6. Traditional and Indigenous
Many sensory references — pachoto, huswa, sadza, manhuchu — are deeply rooted in indigenous ways of living. They reflect a worldview where language, food, land, and spirituality are intertwined.
Language as sensory memory
This exercise reminded me of something said by the Indian linguist G.N. Devy, that languages allow us to express what our senses cannot.
For example, you can feel your back — musana — but you can’t see it. Some concepts, like time (nhasi, mangwana), are abstract, and language gives them shape.
While language bridges perception and expression, it can also awaken our senses. Our environment — its sounds, textures, and smells — shapes the languages we speak and how we imagine them.
Languages are spoken not just with the mouth, but with memory. Each word carries tone, gesture, and warmth impossible to fully translate.
So, what does Shona taste, smell, feel, and look like?
There’s no single answer.
- Maybe it’s the mupunga and dovi my daughter mentioned — simple, familiar, sustaining.
- Maybe it’s the smell of huswa hwanaiwa — taking you back to your grandmother’s yard.
- Maybe it’s the feel of clay — mouldable, shaped, held.
Maybe it’s all of these — because a language, like a people, cannot be captured in one texture or one colour.
Identity, memory, belonging
I would imagine that when Afrikanists Assemble asked this question, their goal was to make us reflect on how languages live through the senses. For me, it became something more — a community conversation about identity, memory, and belonging.
It showed me that people don’t just speak Shona.
They feel it.
They taste it.
They carry it.
And maybe that’s the best definition of a living language — one that can be smelled after the rain, felt under your feet, and remembered in your mouth.
What about you?
If Shona could be felt, tasted, seen, or smelled, what would it be like for you? I’d love to hear your take — leave your response in the comments below and join the conversation.