The discussion of synesthesia has generated a lot of interest and interesting questions. One such question concerned the experience of synesthetes whose language includes different character forms. In trying to answer this intriguing question, I read this article about Japanese synesthetes. The subjects were tested with three types of Japanese characters: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana both consist of phonetic characters, and both represent the same syllables. However, their visual forms are different. The results showed that the color was related to the sound associated with the character, and not its shape. The authors of the study concluded from this that color percept was associated with the character sounds, and not with the visual form. Kanji consists of logographs. The Kanji symbols for numerals were associated with the same colors as the Arabic symbols for numbers. Interesting, Kanji symbols for objects with high associations with colors evoked the corresponding color percept in the synesthetes. This result suggested the meaning also was a strong factor in color – symbol synesthesia. Overall, the authors concluded that sound and higher order semantic processing play an important role in synesthesia.