Uses of onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia

a bang flag gun, humouristic novelty item

in case of frog croaking, spelling may vary because different frog species around world make different sounds: ancient greek brekekekex koax koax (only in aristophanes comic play frogs) marsh frogs; english ribbit species of frog found in north america; english verb croak common frog.

some other common english-language examples hiccup, zoom, bang, beep, moo, , splash. machines , sounds described onomatopoeia: honk or beep-beep horn of automobile, , vroom or brum engine. in speaking of mishap involving audible arcing of electricity, word zap used (and use has been extended describe non-auditory effects connoting same sort of localized thorough interference or destruction similar produced in short-circuit sparking).

human sounds provide instances of onomatopoeia, when mwah used represent kiss.

for animal sounds, words quack (duck), moo (cow), bark or woof (dog), roar (lion), meow/miaow or purr (cat), cluck (chicken) , baa (sheep) typically used in english (both nouns , verbs).

some languages flexibly integrate onomatopoeic words structure. may evolve new word, point no longer recognized onomatopoeia. 1 example english bleat sheep noise: in medieval times pronounced approximately blairt (but without r-component), or blet vowel drawled, more closely resembles sheep noise modern pronunciation.

an example of opposite case cuckoo , which, due continuous familiarity bird noise down centuries, has kept approximately same pronunciation in anglo-saxon times , vowels have not changed have in word furrow.

verba dicendi ( words of saying ) method of integrating onomatopoeia , ideophones grammar.

sometimes things named sounds make. in english, example, there universal fastener named sound makes: zip (in uk) or zipper (in u.s.) many birds named after calls, such bobwhite quail, weero, morepork, killdeer, chickadees , jays, cuckoo, chiffchaff, whooping crane, whip-poor-will, , kookaburra. in tamil , malayalam, word crow kaakaa. practice common in languages such māori, , in names of animals borrowed these languages.

cross-cultural differences

although particular sound heard people of different cultures, expressed through use of different consonant strings in different languages. example, snip of pair of scissors cri-cri in italian, riqui-riqui in spanish, terre-terre or treque-treque in portuguese, krits-krits in modern greek , katr-katr in hindi. similarly, honk of car s horn ba-ba (han: 叭叭) in mandarin, tut-tut in french, pu-pu in japanese, bbang-bbang in korean, bært-bært in norwegian, fom-fom in portuguese , bim-bim in vietnamese.

onomatopoeic effect without onomatopoeia words

onomatopoeic effect can produced in phrase or word string of alliteration , consonance alone, without using onomatopoeic words. famous example phrase furrow followed free in samuel taylor coleridge s rime of ancient mariner. words followed , free not onomatopoeic in themselves, in conjunction furrow reproduce sound of ripples following in wake of speeding ship. similarly, alliteration has been used in line surf surged sun swept shore... , recreate sound of breaking waves, in poem i, , sea .