Shape Terms in Different Languages

To improve interaction with CAD, we want to investigate the way people describe shape. Some research on this topic already exists, however, it can be expected that the way people describe shapes is different in different languages. A comparison was made between shape descriptions in English and Dutch. In general, the most frequently used description of a particular shape was the same in English and in Dutch. However, some shapes were described substantially different in both languages. About one third of the shapes was described differently; however, they contained words that could more or less be considered synonyms. A number of explanations of the different use of words are given, e.g. a word may be ambiguous in one language, or a word is considered rather formal in a particular language.