In Gbaya, the notion of elegance, slenderness, gracefulness or something or someone standing out among others (as of a palm tree) in Song of Songs 7:7 is emphasized with ɗɛ́ŋɛ́n, an ideophone used to describe something strong or robust like the arm of a strong man with with kini-kini, an ideophone used to describe someone who is elegant, slender, and graceful in their gait; used when talking about a very beautiful young woman; expresses the fact of being taller than everyone else in a group.

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. Since the subject matter of Songs of Songs is particularly conducive to the use of ideophones, there are a total of 30 ideophones in the Gbaya Bible in that short biblical book alone. (Source: Philip Noss)