Toward a Theory of Geometric Iconicity in Albanian: Form, Sound, and Meaning in vesh ‘ear’ Abstract This article proposes a research hypothesis concerning a possible relationship between visual form, phonetic structure, perception, and lexical meaning in Albanian. The hypothesis is developed through an analysis of the Albanian word vesh ‘ear’, whose phonological form /veʃ/ is examined alongside the visual configurations associated with its written representation and the perceptual and anatomical properties of the referent. The argument does not claim that the modern shapes of the letters v, s, and h constitute the historical source of the word vesh. Such a claim would confuse the history of writing with the history of the lexeme and would require independent historical evidence. Instead, the article proposes a broader concept, termed here geometric iconicity, referring to the possibility that spatial, visual, articulatory, and perceptual structures may participate in systematic co...
Abstract This paper proposes a hypothesis concerning a possible relationship among geometric form, bodily structure, articulatory gesture, sound, and lexical meaning in Albanian. The hypothesis emerged from a long-term personal investigation that began with a simple question: whether some of the earliest human naming processes may have been motivated not exclusively by arbitrary sound–meaning associations, but also by perceptual and embodied relationships. The proposed model extends conventional discussions of linguistic iconicity and sound symbolism by considering the human body as a potential intermediary between visual form, articulatory action, and lexical representation. Particular attention is given to Albanian examples such as sy ‘eye’, hundë ‘nose’, and buzë ‘lip’, where visual or articulatory properties appear, at least heuristically, to invite associations with particular sounds or graphic forms. The argument is explicitly presented as a research hypothesis rather than an est...