From xeubie@hotmail.com Sat Mar 27 23:05:44 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: xeubie@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 72062 invoked from network); 28 Mar 2004 07:05:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 28 Mar 2004 07:05:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n11.grp.scd.yahoo.com) (66.218.66.66) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 Mar 2004 07:05:43 -0000 Received: from [66.218.66.140] by n11.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 28 Mar 2004 07:05:32 -0000 Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 07:05:31 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Message-ID: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1416 X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 66.218.66.66 From: "la_okus" X-Originating-IP: 69.162.47.2 Subject: Onomatopoeia (err, sp?) X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=170795535 X-Yahoo-Profile: la_okus X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 21831 Buzz, moo, hiss, swish. Higgledy-piggledy, topsy-turvy, hunky- dory. Flim-flam, flip-flop, airy-fairy. Fiddle-faddle, splish-splash, dilly-dally. Onomatopoeia are a somewhat ill-defined category of words meant to mimic the sound of what they describe. While some behave themselves, others have become full-blown nouns and verbs, ready to appear anywhere in the sentence. "MOO, Said the cow." "He knocked the 3-pointer with a SWOOSH." "The rain PLOPPED onto the CUCKOO." Every language has different onomato's, which sometimes overlap: spanish cats say "miau" and sneeze with an "achis". Some languages, Japanese in particular, contain huge libraries of them that drive deep into the language and even have sounds for feelings. Japanese people go uki-uki when they're happy, and their flickering lights go chika-chika, also used to describe eye sore from too much TV or computer (that one applies to me, typing this at 2AM). The Japanese separate onomatopoeia into three groups: sounds of nature (gero-gero = ribbit), states of the external world (gocha-gocha = state of disorder), and conditions of the mind (ira-ira = frustration). How much do attitudinals overlap with this system? How could some of these sounds be integrated unambiguously into lojban grammar? Any other comments? mu'omi'e .oink. Compiled list of of J-slang: http://www.geocities.com/thduggie/japan/jslang.htm