Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the social meanings of sensory language. Remembering language practice as part of strolling in the foreign environment of a city, specialized terms for smell and odour turn out to bear deep resonances in terms of linguistic hospitality.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the possibilities of understanding the deep social meanings of those domains in language that have often been considered marginal, maybe rare, or extraordinary in linguistics. Remembering language practice as part of strolling in the foreign environment of a city, specialized terms for smell and odour turn out to bear deep resonances in terms of linguistic hospitality. Inhabiting the world as migrants and foreigners here involves dealing with the invisible, with smell and scent, as well as creating through language highly evasive spaces in which encounters with the material are healing and sustainable. Language as artful practice and shared insight as well as resonating memory is presented using the example of Luwo, a language spoken in South Sudan.