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 imitative of sounds but cover a much wider range of meanings; indeed, many sound-symbolic words in Japanese are for things that don't make any noise originally, most clearly demonstrated by , not to be confused with the religion ''Shintō''.

Categories

The sound-symbolic words of Japanese can be classified into four main categories:
;
:words that mimic sounds made by living things, like a dog's bark: (wan-wan)
;
:words that mimic sounds made by inanimate objects, like wind blowing or rain falling.
;
:words that depict states, conditions, or manners of the external world (non-auditory senses), such as "damp" or "stealthily".
;
:words that depict psychological states or bodily feelings.

These divisions are not always drawn: sound-symbolism may be referred to generally as onomatopoeia (though strictly this refers to imitative sounds, phonomimes); phonomimes may not be distinguished as animate/inanimate, both being referred to as ''giseigo''; and both phenomimes and psychomimes may be referred to as ''gitaigo''.

In Japanese grammar, sound-symbolic words primarily function as adverbs, though they can also function as verbs (verbal adverbs) with the auxiliary verb , often in the continuous/progressive form , and as adjectives (participle) with the perfective form of this verb . Just like ideophones in many other languages, they are often introduced by a quotative complementizer . Most sound symbolic words can be applied to only a handful of verbs or adjectives. In the examples below, the classified verb or adjective is placed in square brackets.

* Note that unlike the other examples, ''doki doki'' is an onomatopoeic word that mimics the ''sound'' of two beats of a heart

Other types

In their ''Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar'', Seiichi Makino and Michio Tsutsui point out several other types of sound symbolism in Japanese, that relate phonemes and psychological states. For example, the nasal sound gives a more personal and speaker-oriented impression than the velars and ; this contrast can be easily noticed in pairs of synonyms such as and which both mean ''because'', but with the first being perceived as more subjective. This relationship can be correlated with phenomimes containing nasal and velar sounds: While phenomimes containing nasals give the feeling of tactuality and warmth, those containing velars tend to represent hardness, sharpness, and suddenness.

Similarly, i-type adjectives that contain the fricative in the group ''shi'' tend to represent human emotive states, such as in the words , , , and . This too is correlated with those phenomimes and psychomimes containing the same fricative sound, for example and .

The use of the gemination can create a more emphatic or emotive version of a word, as in the following pairs of words: , , , and many others.

See also

*Ideophone
*'' Kuchi shōga'' (system for "pronouncing" drum sounds)
*Sound symbolism
*Chinese exclamative particles

Notes

Further reading

* De Lange, William. (2019). ''A Dictionary of Japanese Onomatopoeia''. TOYO Press.

References

* Akita, Kimi. 2009. “A Grammar of Sound-Symbolic Words in Japanese: Theoretical Approaches to Iconic and Lexical Properties of Japanese Mimetics”. PhD dissertation, Kobe University. http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/repository/thesis/d1/D1004724.pdf.
* Akutsu, Satoru (1994). ''A Practical Guide to Mimetic Expressions Through Pictures''. ALC Press, .
* Hamano, Shoko (1998). ''The sound-symbolic system of Japanese''. Tokyo: Kurosio.
* Hasada, Rie (2001). "Meanings of Japanese sound-symbolic emotion words". In Harkins, Jean & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.) ''Emotions in Crosslinguistic Perspective'' (Cognitive Linguistics Research 17). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 217–253.
* Kita, Sotaro. 1997. “Two-dimensional Semantic Analysis of Japanese Mimetics.” ''Linguistics'' 35: 379–415.
* Nuckolls, Janis B. 2004. “To Be or to Be Not Ideophonically Impoverished.” In ''SALSA XI: Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Symposium About Language and Society'' — Austin, ed. Wai Fong Chiang, Elaine Chun, Laura Mahalingappa, and Siri Mehus, 131–142. Texas Linguistic Forum 47. Austin.
* Seiichi Makino and Michio Tsutsui, ''Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar'', The Japan Times, 1986. .
* Martin, Samuel E. (1964). "Speech labels in Japan and Korea", in Dell Hymes (ed.), ''Language in Culture and Society: A reader in linguistics and anthropology.'' New York: Harper and Row.
* Ono, Shuuichi (ed.) (1989). ''A Practical Guide to Japanese-English Onomatopoeia and Mimesis''. Tokyo: Hokuseidoo.
* Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990). ''The Languages of Japan.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (esp p. 153vv).
* Voeltz, F. K. Erhard, and Christa Kilian-Hatz, eds. 2001. ''Ideophones''. Typological Studies in Language 44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

External links

''Onomatopoeic Expressions - gitaigo and giongo''
from Namiko Abe, About.com's guide to Japanese Language

''Nihongoresources - onomatopoeia dictionary''

''The Jaded Network - SFX Sound Effects Translations Online Dictionary''
from TheJadedNetwork.Com

"'Tokyo Year Zero' Gets Under Readers' Skin"
by Alan Cheuse, ''All Things Considered''. A review of a novel that uses Japanese phonomime.

Japanese Sound effects in Manga and what they mean
originally from www.oop-ack.com

{{Japanese language

Onomatopoeia
Sound symbolism
Sound symbolism
Phonaesthetics

ja:音象徴#日本語の音象徴