Lomas, T. (2018). The  flavours of love: A cross‐cultural lexical analysis. Journal for the Theory  of Social Behaviour, 48, 134–152

Linguists have frequently commented on the polysemous aspect of love, which spans a vast array of emotional connections. Multiple typologies were developed to account for this variability. However, these tend to be limited in breadth and do not adequately represent the spectrum of experiences that the term ‘love’ signifies in discourse.

In order to provide a broader typology of love that encompasses its various manifestations, an investigation was done into relevant notions found throughout the cultures across the world with a concentration on so-called untranslatable words.

609 relevant terms were selected through a semi-systematic search of printed and online sources. These were organized using a variant of grounded theory into fourteen categories, which represent fourteen distinct types or “flavors” of love. The outcome is an extended theoretical analysis of love that enables us to comprehend the complexities of this most cherished and yet multifaceted concept.