Ker-pow! Splat!

Now and then you come across an article on a subject to which you've never ever given a moment's thought:

What does this sound like to you: Splat! KruuuuunNCH! Ker-bang! POW!? Is it Spiderman sorting out his enemies in the new Hollywood blockbuster? Or is it the sound of comic-book English duffing up the less muscular languages of the comic-book world?

According to some linguists and phonologists, the comic-book onomatopoeias of English, all those Ba-doingggs, Oooofs and Grrrrrs — used to amplify thought, action and speech in comic strips — are supplanting the native sound-words used in the comics of smaller languages: and altering these languages at root.

This may seem counterintuitive. Surely onomatopoeias are the same the world over? No. Some sound-words are different simply because of the alternative pronunciation of letters: hee hee hee in English is ji ji ji in Spanish; Swedish cars don’t toot, they tut. Other differences are more subtle, and traditional. The cat’s miaow in English is nyao in Japanese. Someone drinking wine in French makes a glou-glou sound, rather like our glug-glug. French steam trains go tchou-tchou; the Swedish for splash! is plaska!; and Korean cuckoos go ppu-kookk ppu-kookk.

Many onomatopoeias vary strongly or simply have no foreign equivalents. French guns go papop! Danish ambulance sirens go barbu-barbu. Chinese bees don’t buzz, they weng; Swedish cockroaches make a cackerlacka noise; Burmese saxophones go eBa. In Japan the first raindrops in a storm go potsun-potsun; a rich head of hair makes a fusa-fusa noise; and poka-poka is the “sound” something makes when it is nice and warm (think of the bling of our garish jewellery).

I like that Danish barbu-barbu. What sound do Anglophone ambulances make? And potsun-potsun is wonderful. Ah well, it's one more thing for us to worry about. But read to the end of the article and you'll see that Japanese onomatopoeia is remarkably rich (as you'd guess from that potsun-potsun) and not at all under threat. Chinese though looks like a lost cause: weng for the sound of a bee? I don't know what kind of bee they have in China, but I wouldn't like to meet one.

Comments

[George Lee]

That's funny, Mick, because "weng" does sound like a bee to me!

I spent a year in Vietnam and I never heard a single word that sounded onomatopoeic to me.

I do seem to recall that English's "Cockadoodle-doo" for a rooster's crowing is something like "ichi-ichi-row" in Japanese, which now that I think of it sounds like a cheer for the all-star baseball player Ichiro Suzuki.

[Martin Adamson]

Anglophone ambulances? Well, they used to go neenawneenaw (at least in Viz) but now they've changed the siren I don't think a new paradigm has been accepted yet.

[Patrick Mc]

My wife was stung by a Chinese bee some 20 years ago, and still has a clearly visible scar. I'd stay away from them too.