The interconfessional Chichewa translation (publ. 1999) uses the ideophones pisu and phwii in Song of Songs 5:4. Pisu is used to emphasize soft, sliding, stealthy motion of the hand slipping in (and suggest intimacy, gentleness, and expectancy) and phwii describes a sudden pop in the chest, a rush of emotion (“heart exploded”), creating a tense juxtaposition of emotions. (Source: Ernst Wendland)

Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)