Forgive the vague title–couldn’t think of a concise way to say it.
Is there a word for “a word that seems to phonetically represent that which it actually represents?” I’m not talking about onomatopoeia. For example, many Yiddish words “sound right.”
That’s probably a very subjective thing, more a factor of social conditioning than anything. North Americans routinely usurp foriegn words to use as synonyms for common English terms. “Schlep” is one example that we are very accustomed to as it is used almost as often as “Lug” or “Carry.” It “sounds right” simply because it’s such a common way to express one who is laboriously carrying something around.
A word that sounds like what it represents would be an onomatope. Examples of onomatopoetic words would be “Bang,” or “Meow,” or “Crash.”
Well, when I said theory, I meant that any inherent connection between the sound of the words you cite and their actual meaning is theoretical. Which is to say that if I didn’t actually know the meaning of the words, I would not be able to guess the meaning from just hearing them.
Look at one of your examples – “schmuck.” You give the meaning of this word as “jerk,” but if you trace its origin, “schmuck” comes from the German word meaning “jewels” or “treasure.” So there’s no reason inherently why the sound of the word should evoke “jerk” as opposed to “jewels.”
Schmuck literally means “penis” in Yiddish (though I understand you were going back further.
I once read something about an experiment conducted wherein subjects were presented with two shapes, one quite angular, and another with smoother curves. A googling just came up with it: