Favourite onomatopoeia
Clink, plink, plonk. When a word sounds like the action it describes, that’s onomatopoeia. Some languages are more rich in onomatopoeia than others. The Japanese go in for it in a big way. Doki doki, for example, describes the heart pounding quickly from excitement; zaa zaa is the sound of pouring rain.
posted by Adam Jacot de Boinod at 9:32 AM
16 Comments:
What about plimpplamppletteren? It describes the sound of consonants falling haphazardly onto the page, or perhaps coins into a bookshop cashtill.
in german exists word the "kullern" which describes a ball rolling slowly and not in a straight line.
Some uncommon German verbs:
fatzen: to break/rip e.g. like a guitar string (familiar)
plotzen: fall down and burst (derived from 'platzen', to burst); in Suebian generally 'plotze lou' is to let fall sth. (fam./dialect)
dengeln: originally 'to thin' (a scythe with a hammer), from that 'to make hammering noises' up to 'to ride a motor bike in a dangerous way' (fam./slang)
and a noun:
Lateng: a lantern (Laterne) in that you crash with your head (from a known joke)
Just to show how hard it is with languages, I would like to say that as a German I have never heard of the words "fatzen", "plotzen" or "dengeln". Neither have I heard the word "Schnatze" which I recently read in a German blog entry.
A few months ago I asked an American if he knew the words "Schadenfreude", "Zeitgeist" and a couple of other German words I have seen used in online forums by English-speaking people a lot.
So, in any way, it seems to me that just because a speaker of a language has never heard of a word, doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist.
Oh my, forgot to mention something in my comment above.
So, here goes: Said American didn't know any of the words, but since I have seen them used frequently I think it's not a long stretch to say that I am convinced that they are a part of the vocabulary of a lot of other people.
Sure, my suggestions are uncommon. ;-)
I can't remember where I learned "fatzen";
"plotzen" is probably Suebian-only (Schwäbisch) and perhaps only known in some smaller region;
"dengeln" in the non-smithish meaning is rather Northern German and known e.g. from the "Werner" comics and movie (it's not really onomatopoeitic, but at least sound-describing);
"Lateng" is from a joke, like I wrote:
"Vorsicht, da hängt eine La-TENG!" ("Beware, there hangs a la-TENG!")
I read a lot of (English) web-comics and find there a lot of words that I can't find in any dictionary, too...
My favorite Japanese onomatopoeic word has got to be "pera-pera" meaning fluent. I also quite like pika-pika which is my memory serves me correctly means to twinkle.
I've never heard of "fatzen" or "plotzen" but to me it sounds like suebian only - some south german dialect. Since the dialects in the south of Germany are quite a lot it might not be understood in the next village, where they might use even stranger words.
But I do know "Schnarze" (no "Schnatze, though...): A woman who is rather stupid, but pretty and arrogant. (For example, Paris Hilton)
The word Bakku-Shan ("A girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front") is not really Japanese. Bakku is in fact a Japanese pronunciation of the English word “back.” Since Japanese has no sound for “ck”, “ku” is used instead; and Shan is borrowed from German.
There are many incidences of English words traveling to Japan and then back, but ended up with a little twist. Another example is the word Karaoke [originally Kara (empty) OK (orchestra)]. Orchestra is definitely English, but once it made its tour to Japan, and being simplified as OK (for pronunciation), it came back as Karaoke.
This type of situation is almost endless since Japan has been westernized for over a century.
Japanese doki-doki = Indonesian dag-dig-dug
what about the german onomatopoeias:
peng (a shooting pistol)
poing (something that falls and bounces off the floor, most likely a ball or something)
flatsch (the noise of something that hits the floor and is wet and juicy, in quite all cases its a fish ^^)
that's it for today folks
In Luxembourgish:
knätschen (verb) - means to chew noisily, and the word imitates the noise
Interestingly, the word for chewing gum has been derived from this: "Knätsch"
haha interesting, I native leanguage it's spanish there are to many words for communicate and express the same idea, an about of this words I don't even what they are.
Thanks for sharing.
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I was questioning what is up with that weird gravatar??? I know 5am is early and I’m not looking my greatest at that hour, but I hope I don’t appear like this! I'd however make that face if I’m requested to do one hundred pushups. lol
An example of the opposite case is "cuckoo", which, due to continuous familiarity with the bird noise down the centuries, has kept approximately the same pronunciation as in Anglo-Saxon times and its vowels have not changed to as in "furrow".
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