BLOG ENTRY # 86
Oink, Meow, Roar, Chirp
Chew, Chomp, Gurgle, Burp
Word resembling that of its sound
Usage in humour and comics abound!
Onomatopoeia is not new to those of us who have spent our childhood reading Amar Chitra Katha comics and Tinkle digests. I bet those kids who’ve grown up reading superhero comics would be familiar with words like Thump, Whack, Wham and Bam! For me, I love this word not only because its meaning intrigued me but also because my English teacher in the 6th grade used to ask me to spell it in front of the class. I was the teacher’s pet and would love to keep spelling new words for her as and when she used them, such as endeavour, magnificent, accommodate, or onomatopoeia.
Another reason I like reading comics is that the writer gets creative to conjure up interesting onomatopoeic sounds, such as 'FWEET!' to describe a whistle sound, or 'Kerplunk!' for rocks that are falling into a lake. If you think about it, the nursery rhyme “Old MacDonald had a farm” is full of onomatopoeic animal sounds - moo, cluck, oink, quack. Interestingly, though certain sounds may be heard similarly by people speaking different languages across the world, they are often expressed differently in their own languages. For instance, the “snip” of a pair of scissors is katr-katr in Hindi, cri-cri in Italian, and su-su in Chinese.
Now that you know onomatopoeia is not unique to English, other languages have it too, why do you think it originated? Some linguists theorize that language itself evolved from humans trying to imitate sounds in the natural world. Fascinating, isn’t it?
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