音象徴語. Japanese sound symbolism, i.e. the representation of sounds, states, or mannerisms using words such as どきどき or きらきら.
Questions tagged [sound-symbolism]
23 questions
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Is "あらら" (arara) a word or just a "vocal noise"?
A friend just wrote this as a comment on a photo of mine on Facebook.
Is it an actual word or is it what I call a "vocal noise"?
By "vocal noise" I mean those things which convey some meaning but they're not really lexical and can't be used like…
hippietrail
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What is the Japanese Onomatopoeia for the sound a chainsaw makes?
From what I can tell, chainsaws make a sound like buzzing or rustling, etc. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find Japanese onomatopoeia from that sound. I wanted to look specifically for the chainsaw sound effect depicted in the manga, Chainsaw…
Humphrey The Pumpkin
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8
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Is the scream "gya" masculine and "kya" feminine?
I don't speak Japanese, but I notice in some manga (like Mr. Fullswing for example), male characters tend to scream "gya" or "guwa" while female characters tend to scream "kya".
Is it true that "gya" sounds masculine and "kya" sounds feminine? If it…
Vun-Hugh Vaw
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Why are there so many sound symbolic words?
Wikipedia states that "sound symbolic words occur more often in Japanese than in English..." Indeed, Amazon.jp has a 4500-word dictionary just for these words. Is there any research or solid understanding of why Japanese is such a sound…
user1316
4
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1 answer
What is this character in this SFX?
I know the first one but the second one... I've tried to hand write it and I've thought about other characters like ク, フ and レ, researched if there's any known SFX with these combinations but nothing (apart from ビク being "biku" but I don't think…
Alexandra
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Why is there no rendaku occurring in the word ふかふか?
Why isn't the second ふか changed to ぶか in ふかふか; thus, becoming ふかぶか? I would expect to see ふかぶか instead of ふかふか for the same reason that ひとびと is ひとびと, not ひとひと. There is no voicing; thus, Lyman's Law cannot be suppressing it.
The Square Cow
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3
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How does atsui (あつい) sound like English 'hot'?
McWhorter, J. PhD Linguistics (Stanford). The Power of Babel (2003). p. 293 Bottom.
For example, the words in Thai for fire, die, and rim are faj, taaj,
and rim, just by accident! Long lists have been composed of correspondences like this…
user30835
3
votes
2 answers
Desu pronounced dess: what about other words?
On a CD that came with my text book I hear that desu is pronounced dess. Are there many other words in Japanese, where done of the sound from the kana spelling actually falls off, like in this example, at the end our at any other place?
If I…
Jack Maddington
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What is the Japanese onomatopoeia for radio static?
Something like "Bzzz". I'm thinking it's either ブーン or ザーザー, but I can't find any source to really confirm it. Thanks.
Jet
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2
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What does ガスッ mean?
What does the onomatopoeia that appears in red in the image mean? I'm not really sure if it says ガヌッ or ガスッ ,since I'm not good at identifying characters, so I'll leave the image (also to give context)
peopeo
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2
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Is this an error...?
I came across the following in a book I'm reading but have ever seen that kind of grammar before, and Google isn't bringing anything up at all:
固くしてみあ
I'm beginning to think it's a print error.
If anyone will know it'll be you guys on here :)
P.S.…
NobleGuy
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2
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1 answer
Does this Kanji: 全効答 (Zen kō Kotae) mean "total efficiency" or at least convey it symbolically?
I've been playing around with using Kanji as a quick way to convey a company's goals and/or ideals. As I understand it, Zen 全 means "whole/complete", Kō 効 means "efficiency/result" and Kotae 答え means "answer/solution". Does
全効答 have a meaning of…
Rokaru guritchi
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2
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What does something like 'ウオエエエエエ' express?
The context is that the character was in the middle of a long winded speech about something, then noticed their friends weren't paying attention, and got a super annoyed looked on their face, like this, before making the sound. Anyone know? Because…
Roy Fuentes
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how to translate xfx and / or onomatopoeia of the one piece manga
Does anyone know how to translate or any method to understand the xfx and / or onomatopoeia of the one piece manga? If anyone knows please give me a hand.
Estravius Lothar
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Problem trying to adapt the sfx "グワラ" and "ドグワン"
recently I found the sfx "グワラ" and "ドグワラ" in a Hoshino Yukinobu's manga, Munakata Kyouju Denkikou:
I look in sites like thejadednetwork.com but I couldn't find anything relevant to help me adapt this sound effect.
Thank you for the help and so…
osuka
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