International Onomatopoeia (in progress)
Created | Updated Mar 9, 2002
Onomatopoeia is described in the Concise Oxford Dictionary (9th English Edition) as:
"the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g. cuckoo, sizzle)."
Which pretty much sums it up. It's a word that, when spoken aloud, sounds like the thing it means.
I'm trying to get together a list of such words in a load of different languages to see if the non-English words sound as good if not better than their English equivalents.
You can help me by replying to this page with onomatopoeic words in as many different languages as we can get. Please don't make words up unless the result is really funny. I'm not multilingual so I'll have to take this on trust.
All researchers whose contributions are used will be acknowledged in the final article.
Thanks.
The Wisest Fool
P.S. There is also another page dealing with onomatopoeic animal noises e.g. "Quack", "Woof" etc.
You can find it HERE
"the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g. cuckoo, sizzle)."
Which pretty much sums it up. It's a word that, when spoken aloud, sounds like the thing it means.
I'm trying to get together a list of such words in a load of different languages to see if the non-English words sound as good if not better than their English equivalents.
You can help me by replying to this page with onomatopoeic words in as many different languages as we can get. Please don't make words up unless the result is really funny. I'm not multilingual so I'll have to take this on trust.
All researchers whose contributions are used will be acknowledged in the final article.
Thanks.
The Wisest Fool
P.S. There is also another page dealing with onomatopoeic animal noises e.g. "Quack", "Woof" etc.
You can find it HERE
