Ideophone is a
word class evoking ideas in sound imitation or
onomatopoeia to express action, manner of property. Ideophone is the least common
syntactic category A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasal c ...
cross-linguistically occurring mostly in African, Australian and
Amerindian languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
, and sporadically elsewhere. It is globally the only known word class exotic to English. Ideophones resemble
interjections but are unclassifiable as such owing to their special
phonetic or
derivational characteristics, and based on their syntactic function within the sentence. They may include sounds that deviate from the language's phonological system,
imitating—often in a repetitive manner—sounds of movement, animal noises, bodily sounds, noises made by tools or machines, and the like.
While English does have ideophonic or onomatopoetic expressions, it does not contain a proper class of ideophones because any English onomatopoeic word can be included in one of the classical categories. For example, ''la-di-da'' functions as an adjective while others, such as ''zigzag'', may function as a verb, adverb or adjective, depending on the clausal context. In the sentence 'The rabbit zigzagged across the meadow", the verb zigzag takes the past –''ed'' verb ending. In contrast, the reconstructed example *"The rabbit ''zigzag zigzag'' across the meadow" emulates an ideophone but is not idiomatic to English.
Dictionaries of languages like Japanese, Korean, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu list thousands of ideophones. Sometimes ideophones are called ''phonosemantic'' to indicate that it is not a grammatical word class in the traditional sense of the word (like
verb or
noun), but rather a lexical class based on the special relationship between form and meaning exhibited by ideophones. In the discipline of
linguistics, ideophones have sometimes been overlooked or treated as a subgroup of interjections.
Characteristics
The word ideophone was coined in 1935 by
Clement Martyn Doke, who defined it in his ''Bantu Linguistic Terminology'' as follows.
[Doke 1935 as cited in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001]
Ideophones evoke sensory events. A well known instance of ideophones are
onomatopoeic
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...
words—words that imitate the sound (of the event) they refer to. Some ideophones may be derived from onomatopoeic notions. In many languages, however, ideophones do not solely represent sound.
For instance, in
Gbaya, ''kpuk a rap on the door' may be onomatopoeic, but other ideophones depict motion and visual scenes: ''loɓoto-loɓoto'' 'large animals plodding through mud', ''kiláŋ-kiláŋ'' 'in a zigzagging motion', ''pɛɗɛŋ-pɛɗɛŋ'' 'razor sharp'.
Ideophones are often characterized as
iconic or
sound-symbolic words, meaning that there can be a resemblance between their form and their meaning. For instance, in West-African languages, voiced consonants and low tone in ideophones are often connected to largeness and heaviness, whereas voiceless consonants and high tones tend to relate to smallness and lightness.
Reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwar ...
figures quite prominently in ideophones, often conveying a sense of repetition or plurality present in the evoked event. The iconicity of ideophones is shown by the fact that people can guess the meanings of ideophones from various languages at a level above chance. However, the form of ideophones does not completely relate to their meaning; as conventionalized words, they contain arbitrary, language-specific phonemes just like other parts of the vocabulary.
Grammar
The grammatical function of ideophones varies by language. In some languages (e.g.
Welayta,
Yir-Yiront
The Yir-Yoront, also known as the Yir Yiront, are an Indigenous Australian people of the Cape York Peninsula now living mostly in Kowanyama (''kawn yamar'' or 'many waters') but also in Lirrqar/Pormpuraaw, both towns outside their traditional ...
,
Semai,
Korean), they form a separate word class, while in others, they occur across a number of different word classes (e.g.
Mundang,
Ewe,
Sotho,
Hausa
Hausa may refer to:
* Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa
* Hausa language, spoken in West Africa
* Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states
* Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse
See also ...
).
Despite this diversity, ideophones show a number of robust regularities across languages. One is that they are often marked in the same way as quoted speech and demonstrations.
Sometimes ideophones can form a complete utterance on their own, as in English "ta-da!" or Japanese .
[Diffloth 1972] However, in such cases the word ideophone is used as a synonym to interjection. Proper ideophones may occur within utterances, depicting a scene described by other elements of the utterance, as in Japanese ''Taro wa
sutasuta to haya-aruki o shita'' "Taro walked hurriedly' (literally 'Taro did haste-walk ''sutasuta''
').
Ideophones are more like illustrations ''of'' events than responses ''to'' events. An ideophone like Gbaya ''kiláŋ-kiláŋ'' 'in a zigzagging motion' displays a certain resemblance to the event (for instance, its irregular vowels and tones depicting the irregularity of the motion).
Registers
Languages may differ in the context in which ideophones are used. In some languages, ideophones are primarily used in spoken language (e.g.
narrative contexts) and are rarely encountered in written language.
[Noss in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001] In other languages (e.g.
Ewe,
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
), ideophones can be freely used in all
registers. In general, however, ideophones tend to occur more extensively in spoken language because of their expressive or dramaturgic function.
[Kunene in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001]
Examples
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
The Japanese language has thousands of ideophones, often called ''mimetics''. The constructions are quite metrical 2-2, or 3-3, where
morae
A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic''), ...
play a role in the symmetry. The first consonant of the second word of the reduplication
may become voiced if phonological conditions allow. Japanese ideophones are used extensively in daily conversations as well as in the written language.
* ''doki doki'' () – heart-pounding
* ''kira kira'' () – glittery
* ''shiin'' () – silence
* ''niko niko'' () – smile
* ''jii'' () – stare
*''run run'' () – cheerful
Tamil
The Tamil language uses a lot of ideophones, both in spoken (colloquial) and in formal usage. Ideophones are called irattaik kilavi (இரட்டைக் கிளவி) in Tamil grammar.
* ''sora sora'' () – rough (the sound produced when rubbing back and forth on a rough surface)
* ''vazha-vazha'' () – smooth, slippery
* ''mozhu-mozhu'' () – smooth (surface)
* ''kozhu-kozhu'' () – plump
* ''kozha-kozha'' () – slimy, gooey
* ''busu-busu'' () – soft and bushy
* ''giDu-giDu'' () – quickly, fast
* ''maDa-maDa'' () – quickly, fast
* ''masa-masa'' () – sluggish, lethargic
* ''viru-viru'' () – energetically (also, spicy)
* ''choda-choda'' () – marshy, waterlogged
* ''paLa-paLa'' () – glittering, shiny
* ''veDa-veDa'' () – shaking, trembling
* ''chuDa-chuDa'' () – piping hot
* ''mAngu-mAngu'' () – laboriously
* ''gara-gara'' () – crunchy, gravely (as in voice)
* ''doLa-doLa'' () - hanging loose (as in loose fitting)
* ''taLa-taLa'' () - lush (as in a lush plant/orchard)
* ''toNa-toNa'' () - annoyingly incessant
Xhosa
Xhosa may refer to:
* Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa
* Xhosa language
Xhosa (, ) also isiXhosa as an endonym, is a Nguni language and one of the official language ...
In Xhosa, as in closely related Zulu, ideophones can convey very complex experiential impressions or can just strengthen meanings of other words. The ideophone is often introduced using the verb ''thi'' 'say'.
Using ''thi'':
* ''cwaka'' – to be silent
:: ''Lixesha lokuthi cwaka''. 'It is time to be silent.'
iterally: 'It is time to say ''cwaka''.'* ''gqi'' – to suddenly appear
:: ''Bathi gqi abelungu eAfrika''. 'The white people suddenly arrived in Africa.'
iterally: 'The white people said ''gqi'' in Africa.'
Without using ''thi'':
* ''ncam'' – exact
* ''bhuxe'' – to stand motionless
Further reading
Voeltz, F. K. E., and C. Kilian-Hatz (eds.) 2001. ''Ideophones''. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
See also
*
Ideasthesia
Ideasthesia (alternative spelling ideaesthesia) is a neuropsychological phenomenon in which activations of concepts (inducers) evoke perception-like sensory experiences (concurrents). The name comes from the Ancient Greek () and (), meaning 's ...
*
Sound symbolism
In linguistics, sound symbolism is the resemblance between sound and meaning. It is a form of linguistic iconicity. For example, the English word ''ding'' may sound similar to the actual sound of a bell. Linguistic sound may be perceived as simil ...
(phonosemantics)
*
Synesthesia
*
Reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwar ...
*
Onomatopoeia
*
Japanese sound symbolism
The Japanese language has a large inventory of sound symbolic or mimetic words, known in linguistics as ideophones. Such words are found in written as well as spoken Japanese. Known popularly as ''onomatopoeia'', these words are not just imitat ...
*
Bouba/kiki effect
References
Bibliography
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Phonaesthetics
Semantics
Semiotics
Parts of speech