ONOMATOVEA

ONOMATOVEA

Onomatopoeia is the word which is imitating from the sounds of something.  Let me say with “from the ears fall in to the mouth”. May be the first time you here onomatopoeia you will think it’s the name of some dieses or something like that. But it is not some dieses, it’s the word that formed by the sound of the word itself. It creates a sound effect that mimics the thing described, making the description more expressive and interesting. There are many form of this word, it can be an adjective, a verb, and a noun. To give more understanding to you about onomatopoeia, I will give you some examples directly. In English we call gecko because some of English people here that gecko produce the sound “ge…ckoo...”  Yet it’s different from Indonesia, Indonesia people call gecko with tokek because they here that gecko produce the sound “to-kek...”  Indonesian people have created many onomatopoeias, as like “telurceplok” (they take from the sound when the egg falls in to the cooking pan), and the word “kentut” (they take from the fart’s sound ‘tuuut’).

Another example is Javanese, java has much onomatopoeia, sometimes they divided it into three expressions, for instance, they use word “kricik-kricik” to express the sound of little water, “kracak-kracak” to express the sound of swift water. And they use the word “krucukkrucuk” to express the stomach which is hungry. Another example are the word “pentil” to express small circle and the word “pentol” to express big circle.

From that example we can understand that each country has the different onomatopoeia, yet there are similarities between Indonesian and English, like “meong” and “meow” for cat’s sound, and “mbeeek” and “baah” for sheep’s sound. Talking about similarities, let’s check the similarities onomatopoeia among the countries to express the chicken which is crowing

Indonesia: kukuruyuk

Inggris: cock-a-doodle-doo

Prancis: cocorico

Belanda: kukeleku

Germany: kikeriki

Arab: kukukuku

Japan: kokekokkoo

Italy: chicchirichì

Philippines: tiktilaok

We never know which language that is very good fit to express the sound of the chicken, and it will never end if we debate about this. We can conclude that generally onomatopoeia is divided in to two different ways. The first is onomatopoeia which has interpreted in a word. And the second is onomatopoeia which hasn’t interpreted in a word. But many of the words it includes seem to fall into a few categories, with the most, by far, being associated with the sounds made by animals. Here are some onomatopoetic words, grouped by category:

1.      Mechanical

Machine noises seem to make up a fair amount of the common words in this group. Examples include buzz, beep, whirr, click, clack, clunk, clatter, clink. Many of these words begin with a "cl" sound.

2.      Fast Motion.

Words that convey the sound of speed seem often to begin with the letter s or z. Boing, varoom/vroom, whoosh, swish, swoosh,zap, zing, zip, and zoom are examples.

3.      Musical.

 Some words in this group are associated with specific music instruments — the twang of a banjo or guitar, for example, or oompah for a tuba, or plunk for a keyboard. Others imitate a metallic sound, and these often end in ng: ting, ding, ring, ping, clang, bong, brrrring, jingle, and jangle. Then there are some that clearly evoke wind instruments, like blare, honk, and toot; and another group that seem percussive, like rap, tap, boom, rattle, and plunk. A person making music without an instrument might hum or clap or snap.

4.      Food Preparation and Eating.

-In cooking, food may crackle or sizzle and oil may splatter. When a person pours something to drink, it may go splash, kerplunk, or gush, but hopefully it won’t drip, and when we open a soft drink, it will probably fizz. When it’s time to eat, people are likely to nibble, munch, gobble, and crunch. 

5.      Fighting.

The action words that show up in comic books during fighting scenes are onomatopoetic, and include terms like pow, bif, bam, whomp, thump, smash, zowie, bang, and wham are some of them.

6.      Animals.

The sounds that animals make are complicated even in English, but it’s important for people to be aware that — contrary to what they might expect — in different parts of the world, the words used for animal sounds are quite different. Sheep do not universally go baa, nor do ducks quack everywhere in the world. Here are some common English renderings:

           

cat	mew/meow	cow	moo/low
horse	neigh/whinny	dog	bark/woof/bow-wow
pig	Oink	lion	roar
bird	Tweet	hen	cluck
chick	Peep	rooster	cock-a-doodle-doo/crow