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====== Odor Colors ======

I'm still trying to work out vulpithecine odor vocabulary. Here's a scientific paper that I found recently that helps a bit: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6015838/

Two sets of participants were asked to describe a set of odors. One Western, primarily Dutch-speaking group, and a group of Jahai from Malaysia. The Dutch group took much longer to identify odors and used mostly concrete descriptors for those odors. the Jahai group was much quicker and used a suite of abstract odor terms (I assume what I've been calling "odor colors").

I have yet to find a publicly accessible article that breaks down how these odor colors are arranged.

For now, yinrih odor vocabulary is heavily tied to emotion, with the arousal-valence model of emotion being my primary inspiration. Arousal means whether the odor has a calming (negative arousal) or exciting/stimulating (positive arousal) affect. Valence refers to whether the emotion is seen as positive or negative. //happy// is a positive valence, somewhat high arousal. //sad//, is negative valence, low arousal. //Calm// is positive valence, low arousal, etc. 

Some yinrih odor words differentiate between strong and light sensations of the same odor, much like the English distinction between the colors red and pink. There is also vocabulary to describe how long an odor is perceived, whether an odor is persistent, lingering, or fleeting. 

Yinrih also have many ways of describing the scent of other yinrih, mainly linked to emotional states. Universally across yinrih languages, the word for //feel// as in //feel an emotion// also means //smell like//. So you don't say //I feel happy// you say //I smell happy//. To a yinrih this isn't just a turn of phrase, happiness literally has an odor, as do other emotions.

In addition to smelling emotions, yinrih identify one another primarily by smell. Gender, reproductive status, and approximate age are readily apparent from a yinrih's ambient musk and ink. There are three distinct odors associated with reproductive status based on the condition of the ovary((important note, both men and women have an ovary.)), Immature, when the ovary isn't fully developed, mature pre-oviposition, when the ovary is mature but the yinrih has not laid their egg, and mature, post-ovipositon, when the ovary is destroyed due to egg laying.  

To a human, yinrih and their ink smell "rainy", and most humans describe a yinrih's musk as pleasant and calming.

{{tag>biology}}