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So, I just had an idea inspired by This question here while simultaneously listening to a video about language...

Could we make a sort of International Phonetic Alphabet for Emotions and States of mind? And what would it look like?

It seems to me that if we could create such a thing it would be incredibly useful to writers, programmers, psychologists. Considering how useful it could be, now I'm wondering why it hasn't been made yet...

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Durakken
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    When I read this question title on the main page, I thought it was going to be about ale. Imagine my dissappointment... If only I had a character to express it :_( – cobaltduck Aug 17 '16 at 13:44
  • A language that can perfectly express emotions and states of mind? It would be incredibly useful to writers, programmers, psychologists, yes. That's the ideal state for any language or art form in general; and like any other ideal, sadly unattainable. – nzaman Aug 17 '16 at 15:50
  • I am starting to think a better explanation would be more along the lines of a Table of Elementary Emotional Particles or something of that nature, not so much a language per se. – Durakken Aug 17 '16 at 17:04
  • When I saw this question, I was picturing all kinds of things. All of them had to do with beer. – Erin Thursby Aug 17 '16 at 17:51
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    I get pretty emotional after a few bottles of IPA. – Wossname Aug 18 '16 at 10:35

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Probably not

The nice thing about the regular IPA is that there only so many sounds that human physiology is capable of making. Human emotional states are far more varied and objectively difficult to quantify.

The IEA hasn't been made yet because we still aren't sure how many different emotions there are. Just yesterday I was looking for how many basic emotional states there are. I found answers ranging from four or five up to eight. Add in that so much of emotion is context specific. The happy/joy you feel at a friend's wedding is very different than the happy/joy you might feel at the funeral of a friend who lost their battle with cancer and is no longer in pain.

Green
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  • It is true that those two are different, but surely there is some elementary "part" that could be quantified. Like the feeling of "lose" or "relief" may be just parts that contribute to an overall feeling of "happiness" – Durakken Aug 17 '16 at 13:45
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    Emotions and their expressions are also shaped greatly by culture, leading to even more confusion. – Cyrus Aug 17 '16 at 13:49
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You can pretty much think of emotional states as finite state machines with n! states, and n is at least 100. Ultimately, the problem is that you can, while feeling one already complex emotion, simultaneously feel another extremely complex emotion. This layering can happen n - levels deep.

So, not only can you have happy at a friend's wedding vs happy at the funeral of a friend who's no longer battling cancer and is free from pain (as @Green mentioned), but you can simultaneously feel guilty at feeling happy, and feel the pressure of responsibility from your own family, and feel... etc. etc. etc..

So, to be able to describe an emotional state, you can't simply use an IPA-like dictionary to map emotional state-to-words, what you need is the building blocks to be able to compose multiple emotional states which are then composable with each other. At which point, what you're asking for is an international language standard. Welcome to Esperanto.

Azuaron
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One answer is "alien emojis". Just draw pictures of the general shape an alien is when feeling each simple emotion, then average them for each complex emotion and smooth the result. Maybe your aliens only communicate with emotion; but then scientific research would be rather complicated -- what emotion is a proton?

matt
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