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In rhetoric, linguistics and poetry, onomatopoeia (also spelled onomatopia) is a figure of speech that employs a word, or occasionally, a grouping of words, that imitates the sound it is describing, and thus suggests its source object, such as “bang” or “click”, or animal such as “moo”, “quack” or “meow”. Onomatopoeic words exist in every language, although they are different in each. For example: Sometimes onomatopoeic words can seem to have a tenuous relationship with the object they describe. Native speakers of a given language might never question the relationship; however, 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 sound a dog makes is bow-wow (or woof-woof) in English, wau-wau in German, ouah-ouah in French, gaf-gaf in Russian, hav-hav in Hebrew, wan-wan in Japanese and hau-hau in Finnish. Some animals are named after the sounds they make, especially birds such as the cuckoo and chickadee. In Tamil, the word for crow is Kaakaa. This practice is especially common in certain languages such as Māori and therefore in names for birds borrowed from these languages.
Everyday sounds Some other very common English-language examples include: Machine sounds Aside from the above, machines are usually described with: Brrrrr Blaaaa GRRRRRRAK chiiiiiiing ba dang chachan blemp crhcak quak Animal sounds For animal sounds, these words are typically used in English: Some of these words are used both as nouns and as verbs. Manner imitation In some languages onomatopoeia describes a phenomenon apart from the purely auditive. Japanese often utilizes onomatopoeia to describe feelings or figurative expressions about objects or concepts. For instance, Japanese barabara and shiiin are onomatopoeic forms reflecting a scattered state and silence, respectively. See also Japanese sound symbolism. Onomatopoeia in advertising Advertising uses onomatopoeia as a mnemonic so consumers will remember their products: Onomatopoeic names Occasionally, words for things are created from representations of the sounds these objects make. In English, for example, there is the universal fastener which is named for the onomatopoeic of the sound it makes: the zip (in the UK); less onomatopoeiacally zipper in the US. Many birds are named from the onomatopoeic link with the calls they make, such as the Bobwhite quail, Chickadee, the Cuckoo, the Whooping Crane, and the Whip-poor-will. Some names for human cultures are derived from the sound of their apparently incomprehensible languages. For example, the tatars of Asia, and barbarians in Europe, named respectively by the Chinese and the Greeks. Onomatopoeia in pop culture See also Notes | ||||||||
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