European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 17, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                The language of sound symbolism by Jack Rosenthal new York times rom Arf to my dog says err Ruff Little orphan annies dog says and dogs in general say Bow they that if they Are american in dogs Are Apt to say Bow Bow h How How in wan american and chinese cats say i but greek and japanese cats say something with a distinct n instead of an iding on National a roosters arpeggio r gos from the  of English to Kik Iriki Kennan Tocu Curico arabic to the Plain kuku of mandarin american Birds but some european Birds Kuee and others latin american Chicks can probably communicate Fine with their North american even though they say not Cheep these Are some examples of what English of aches s Call what linguists Call iconic words or sound and what laymen Call sound they Are words that imitate sounds in nature and the Way they Are created teaches much about this process of invention in the first that language is arbitrary and reflects its culture More than some objective Universal whats sound in one culture is or at least a different in people tend to think of sound if they think about them at As not being part of formal such words Are thought to be Basic to human beyond any specific ouch for int that what people anywhere would say on for the hot handle of a Saucepan a Spanish speaker would probably say Ai a filipino might say Aray an israeli jew ponders the question and concludes that in his people who grew up speaking hebrew would say Ach and those who grew up with yiddish would say of in people might say Itai or item the Kalauli people of new would probably say Wafe everyone knows that the first word uttered by babies anywhere is but one reason people think so is that its the word they Are attuned to think of As the first they turn a deaf ear to other utterances that might make every bit As much Allen longtime foreign service Institute suggests in any there May be physiological reasons for the fact that babies everywhere tend to say Mamma Early in their careers As Public Bilabial sounds like papa and Baba Are probably the easiest for the infant Mouth to but that does not necessarily ordain their in a does not mean Mother at it Means the word for Mother what vietnamese speakers May recognize As baby first word is another theres not much that Universal about sounds devised in different cultures to imitate inanimate the differences Are the Anchor you drop in an american Lake goes plop but the same Anchor in Austria goes plump the differences Are hard to in the same Anchor would say Pohan whats the sound of a bomb exploding linguists at Ohio state University asked speakers of Many different and the answer was generally something like Boom except in in which it was they found Only Small variations in the vocabulary of clocks tick Tock or tick tick or but they found no such unanimity for other iconic whats the sound of something Juicy hitting a hard surface Here Are some of the roughly approximated English splat German Patsch French flak hebrew Floch chinese Pyak japanese Pisha Pisha in people around the world form sound words depending on How they hear or experience the their sound symbols can be every bit As different As their different perceptions of their different one of the biggest in May be the extent to which societies use sound words at some like those around the Are said to be Rich in sound by English has Long been thought of As sound word other cultures have lots of words for specific like a drop of Oil falling on says Leanne a linguist at the University of California at but she finds that English May not be so underdeveloped after she went beyond now familiar items like pow Zap and Aimeee she has catalogued Many newer some reflecting quite recent cultural imperatives Sheek the noise made when a super heroine nails a Skrele the sound made by a car skidding around an Toom a huge formulations like these suggest beneath All the cultural there might nonetheless be some underlying patterns or principles in sound for in English and other the High front Vowel be often seems to connote As in Back vowels like of seem to connote As in but parallels like these probably apply Only within associated language Steven a professor at the University of Texas at is a longtime student of the Kalauli people in new to he be does not connote Small at they associate that logically with All the he suggests that there is a Universal principle of sound regardless of the culture or the the Universal is not in any specific sounds associated with specific it is that All languages seem to exploit sound symbolism in some implicit Way that is systematic and internally the Kalauli people do this with considerable As can be seen by dissecting their word in their the sound of connotes motion a connotes motion outward sensibly repeating a sound Means continuing Googoo Argaw May sound childish but is brilliantly it Means when Marvel comics offers up a word like its not inventing a wholly arbitrary sound but one that seems based on something valid and consistent in the Way we experience modern culture and the Way we hear our with a the difference is pronounced a Sample for present Day pronunciations commonly heard in the White vernacular dialects of each hyphenated words should be pronounced rapidly and smoothly to reproduce As closely As possible the real by Mich item Yogi Chy Down Rayon University of Pennsylvania linguistics Laboratory August 1985 the stars and stripes Page 13