Onomatopoeia Totally Explained

Onomatopoeia (occasionally spelled onomatopœia) is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it's describing, suggesting its source object, such as "click," "buzz," or "bluuuh," or animal noises such as "oink", "quack", or "meow". The word is a synthesis of the Greek words "onoma - όνομα name" and "poio - ποιώ" (an ancient verb meaning "to create") thus it essentially means "name creation".

Variations in onomatopoeia between languages

Onomatopoeic words exist in every language, although they're different in each. For example:

In Ancient Greek, brekekekex koax koax: a frog croaking.
In Chinese, miāo (喵): the sound a cat makes.
In Dutch, kukeleku: a rooster crowing.
In French, pan: a gun or cannon firing.
In German, peng: a pistol shot.
In Haitian Creole, bip: the sound of a collision (ex. a car crash).
In Hindi dhadak and Urdu dhakdhak (pronounced /ˈd̪əɖək/): a person's heartbeat, indicative of the sound of one beat.
In Icelandic, "tikk, takk" is the sound of a clock ticking, and "búmm!" or "bamm!" is the sound of an explosion. Atsjú! is also the onomatopoeia for when a person sneezes.
In Japanese, doki doki (ドキドキ):e the (speeding up of the) beating of a heart (and thus excitement).
In Korean, meong meong : a dog barking.
In Latin, tuxtax was the equivalent of bam or whack and was meant to imitate the sound of blows landing.
In Proto-Indo-European language, k^wk^wlos = "wheel", from the noise that it makes when rolling: from which English "wheel", Greek κυκλος, etc.
In Russian, gaf gaf: a dog barking.
In Turkish, hapşırmak (the verb for to sneeze): is based on the sound hapshoo made by a person who sneezes.
In Vietnamese, vi vu: the sound of a gentle breeze, and vù vù: the sound of strong wind.

Sometimes onomatopoeic words can seem to have a tenuous relationship with the object they describe. Native speakers of a given language may never question the relationship, but because words for the same basic sound can differ considerably between languages, non-native speakers might be confused by the idiomatic words of another language. For example, the is bow-wow (or woof-woof) in English, wau-wau in German, uau-uau in Interlingua, ouah-ouah in French, gaf-gaf in Russian, hav-hav in Hebrew, wan-wan, bau-bau, or kyan-kyan in Japanese, guau-guau in Spanish, bau-bau in Italian, vov-vov in Danish, woef woef [asEnglish woof] or waf waf in Dutch, wou wou in Cantonese, voff-voff in Icelandic, hau-hau in [[Finnishlanguage|Finnish and Polish, haf-haf in Czech, hav-hav (pronounced like English how-how) in Slovak, guk guk in Indonesian, bub bub in Catalan, ghav-ghav in Modern Greek, wou wou in Teso, gâu gâu in Vietnamese and meong meong in Korean.
In the case of frog croaking, the spelling can vary because species of frog found in another area may may make another noise: Ancient Greek brekekekex koax koax for probably Rana ridibunda; English ribbit for species of frog found in North America; English verb "" for Rana temporaria.

Uses of onomatopoeia

Some other very common English-language examples include hiccup, bang, beep, and splash. Machines and their sounds are also often described with onomatopoeia, as in honk or beep-beep for the horn of an automobile, and vroom or brum for the engine. Science fiction laser weapons' sound is often described like zap. For animal sounds, words like quack (duck), roar (lion) and meow (cat) are typically used in English. Some of these words are used both as nouns and as verbs. Agglutinative languages or synthetic languages flexibly integrate onomatopoeic words into their structure. This may evolve into a new word, up to the point that it's no longer recognized as onomatopoeia. One example is English "bleat" for the sheep noise: in medieval times it was pronounced approximately as "blairt" (but without an R-component), or "blet" with the vowel drawled, which is much more accurate as onomatopoeia than the modern pronunciation.
An example of the opposite case is "cuckoo", which, due to continuous familiarity with the bird noise down the centuries, has kept approximately the same pronunciation as in Anglo-Saxon times and hasn't changed to having its vowels as in "furrow". Verbum dicendi is a method of integrating onomatopoeia and ideophones into grammar.
Occasionally, words for things are created from representations of the sounds these objects make. In English, for example, there's the universal fastener which is named for the onomatopoeic of the sound it makes: the zip (in the UK) or zipper (in the U.S.). Many birds are named from the onomatopoetic link with the calls they make, such as the Bobwhite quail, chickadee, the cuckoo, the chiffchaff, the whooping crane and the whip-poor-will. In Tamil, the word for crow is kaakaa. This practice is especially common in certain languages such as Māori and, therefore, in names of animals borrowed from these languages. Advertising uses onomatopoeia as a mnemonic, so consumers will remember their products, as in Rice Krispies (US and UK) and Rice Bubbles (AU) which make a "snap, crackle, pop" when one pours on milk; or in road safety advertisements: "clunk click, every trip" (click the seatbelt on after clunking the car door closed; UK campaign) or "click, clack, front and back" (click, clack of connecting the seatbelts; AU campaign) or "click it or ticket" (click of the connecting seatbelt; US DOT campaign).

Manner imitation

In many of the world's languages, onomatopoeia-like words are used to describe phenomena apart from the purely auditive. Japanese often utilizes such words to describe feelings or figurative expressions about objects or concepts. For instance, Japanese barabara is used to reflect an object's state of disarray or separation, and shiiin is the onomatopoetic form of absolute silence (used at the time an English speaker might expect to hear the sound of crickets chirping or a pin dropping in a silent room). It is used in English as well with terms like bling, which describes the shine on things like gold, chrome or precious stones.

Onomatopoeia in pop culture

Whaam! (1963) by Roy Lichtenstein is an early example of pop art, featuring fighter aircraft being struck by rockets with dazzling red and yellow explosions.

Marvel Comics have trademarked two words of their own invention: "THWIP!", the sound of Spider-Man's web shooter, and "SNIKT!" the switchblade-sound of Wolverine's claws locking into place (which was replaced with the lesser-known "SCHLIKT" during the period he was left without the adamantium covering on his bones). Marvel also uses the sound effect "BAMF" to signify Nightcrawler's teleportation.

In the Garfield comic strip and television series, there's a running gag about a "splut," which is usually the sound of a pie hitting someone in the face.

For example, Garfield once kicked Odie, but instead of 'kick' it said 'blagoonga', with Garfield remarking to Jon that Odie needs to be tuned

In the 1960s TV series “Batman”, comic book style onomatopoeias such as “WHAM!”, “POW!” and “CRUNCH” appear onscreen during fight scenes. This is often the subject of parody, for example in the Simpsons episode "Radioactive Man" where the onomatopoeic words are replaced with nonsense such as "SNUH!", "NEWT!" and "MINT!".

Ubisoft's XIII employed the use of comic book onomatopoeias such as “BAM!”, “BOOOM” and “NOOOO!” during gameplay for gunshots, explosions and kills, respectively. The comic-book style is apparent throughout the game and is a core theme, as the game is an adaptation of a comic book of the same name.

The onomatopoeia that's said to be heard at a typical Disco Biscuits (a popular jamband) show is "UNTZ." This description seems to have originated from an interview with Bob Dylan, who said "I kept hearing this,'UNTZ..UNTZ..UNTZ..UNTZ..' sound in the background of all the music...fun time, though...lots of young kids with dilated pupils."

In Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels, the name of the Houyhnhnm's is an onomatopoeia for the whinny of a horse.

Todd Rundgren wrote a humorous song "Onomatopoeia" which uses many examples in this "Love Song". Examples in the song start out reasonable and start to get more ludicrous as the song goes on.

The comic strip For Better or For Worse is notorious for using non-onomatopoeic verbs as onomatopoeias, such as "Scrape," to indicate a person shaving, or "Tie," to illustrate someone tying a string around a package.

A well-known rhetorical question is "Why doesn't onomatopoeia sound like what it is?".

Brian Preston, a popular Quizzo night host in Philadelphia used words like "CRASH", "BOOM", and "FART" to describe onomatopoeia. Unfortunately, "FART" is a non-onomatopoeia (although its Proto-Indo-European language ancestor perd- (compare Greek περδομαι and Avestic prd) is more realistic).

"Kerplunk" was used in the video game Final Fantasy VIII as the name of one of the Guardian Force Cactuar's attacks. For the Guardian Force Tonberry, the humorously out of place onomatopoeia of "DOINK!" is written onscreen during its powerful knife stab attack.

In the video game, an onomatopoeia appears wherever an attack hits its target.

The cartoon Fairly Oddparents, very often, uses proper words in the usual places of onomatopoeias. Mostly, the words mean the appearing of whatever objects Cosmo and/or Wanda may conjure.

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