Talk:Cross-linguistic onomatopoeias

Tabular format?

👍👍👍 Indeed a tabular format is a must in this article, instead of the free-style format on every other line. Unfortunately, there's a lot of work to do here...

I have tabulated the first section "Human sounds" and also cleaned up the formatting a bit. Could this be a workable format? CMunk (talk) 12:03, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

IPA

Eating:English:Om nom nom... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.118.40.77 (talk) 16:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

See Talk:Onomatopoeia#IPA --Ersaloz (talk) 17:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

This article has no citations and a lot of these things aren't even used. Someone should fix this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.57.140.142 (talk) 22:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for deletion

This article is a disgrace. Where do I even begin? "Because of the nature of onomatopoeia, there are many cross-linguistic cognates of onomatopoetic sounds". And what might that nature be? This wording implies that onomatopoeia are intrinsically more likely to resemble that which they refer to than any other word, when the truth is that, just like with any other symbol, onomatopoeia are only linked to that which they refer to by means of an arbitrary relationship. This article, which does little more than highlight a list of nothing more than anecdotal information and implies all sorts of things that simply are not the case (primarily, that onomatopoeia are in some way non-arbitrary signs), does not meet WP:V, WP:N or WP:INDISCRIMINATE, and should not be in Wikipedia. Furthermore, it gives the impression that onomatopoeia are in some way non-arbitrary signs by quoting "some (many) conventional examples" that turn out to be both a very carefully selected list of "examples", and a list that highlights words whose relations are dubious at best, on most cases. This is probably the single most arbitrary listing of meaningless and unencyclopaedic words I have ever seen in my life, and the fact that it is _in_ and encyclopedia portrays it like something it is not. Jjatria (talk) 06:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

There's a point of what you're saying. It seams that this article was initially within the Onomatopoeia#Cross-linguistic_examples section, and was promoted to its own article since it became too big. Nevertheless, There are many examples of lists of information and examples in wikipedia that where promoted to their own articles because of their size.

I think that the content of this article is still valuable, and it should remains, if not in wikipeida, maybe somewhere else within the wikimeida domain... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.66.200.205 (talk) 14:42, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

You won't find these onomatopoeia in a translation dictionary, so this page is a useful resource. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.71.29.127 (talk) 13:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

My vote is against deletion. This article is certainly very valuable for linguistic typology. However, it needs citations for each and every example to make it encyclopedic. --Vihelik (talk) 03:29, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I vote against deletion. This is a useful cross-linguistic resource. It may be unrealistic to expect actual citations for something like this because it's a very informal form of language. Can this encyclopedia not include slang?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.142.208.112 (talk) 18:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It's been ages since I checked this, but here it goes. First of all, this is not "a useful cross-linguistic resource" nor "very valuable for linguistic typology", since it is completely lacking in reliability. Take your time to go through the examples listed. Check the entries for the languages you know. First of all, what does it mean for a word to be listed here in the first place? What makes a candidate suitable for inclusion (or deletion, for that matter)? I'm a native Spanish speaker, but I've never used "bum bum bum" for a heart beat, nor "tic tac" for a clock's ticking sound. If I had to write them, I wouldn't do it like that. If I read them somewhere, with the proper context, I guess I would be able to understand what they (and a lot more like them) refer to, but it's certainly not as standardized an onomatopoeia as the article makes it look like.

And about not being able to find these on a dictionary? Well, there's a good reason for this: good dictionaries (and I mean really good ones) are made by people who spend time looking for words they can actually see being used, and a lot more than a single sighting of a new word is needed for a word to be recorded in a dictionary. The reason for this is that a single sighting is a good indication that the word is not in common use yet (and so is probably not needed in a dictionary). If I opened a dictionary and found half the words in this list, I would throw it away for the piece of rubbish it is.

Finally, it's not about slang. This is not slang. Most of these entries are most likely not even used in their languages. It's about rigour. This list is likely the result of people adding things they think might be good candidates for different things, but without any sources; probably seeing a title and trying to think how they would say it in their own language, maybe even trying to be creative (which spells disaster for gathering useful examples). And if you think it's "unrealistic" to find sources for informal language, then you should look around a little. Go read some forums for written informal texts. The web is teeming with them.

It's a pity this passes for "valuable" and "useful", because it is neither. And I certainly don't know any self-respecting linguist that would use this for any sort of "linguistic typology". Jjatria (talk) 14:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Let us keep it. I have used it professionally (not as a scientist, tho). Zezen (talk) 12:21, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Om Nom Nom?

The first listing for an eating onomatopoeia in the United States is "om nom nom". While this is my favorite onomatopoeia, I feel it isn't used nearly often enough to be the first one listed. Might this be better moved to the end? Chomp and Gulp are much more commonly used and should probably be listed first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.225.182.249 (talk) 14:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

It used to say "munch munch" I think. Googling "miam miam" and "njam njam" seems so show they're legit -- but I'm worried that the whole section could be vandalism. It's one big Citation Needed. Fyedernoggersnodden (talk) 05:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure fart - hebrew 'pook' should be included in this list

I believe that there are many modern Hebrew words that originate in ancient aramaic, one of the main languages of the Talmud. The word 'pook' in Aramaic means to expel. It can be found in many places in the talmud. this may be the origin of the word 'pook' in Hebrew; to expel (gas). I am not deleting it (yet) because I don't know for sure if this word originates in Aramaic, or is an Onomatopoeia. Perhaps a Hebrew etymology dictionary should be consulted, if one exists — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkkelf99 (talk • contribs) 06:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

English Heart-Beats

No anglophone that I know says "throb throb" to describe a heart beating. Throbbing is a verb that hearts do, but it is not an onomatopeia. I added "ba-bump" and similar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.142.208.112 (talk) 19:01, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

A dictionary of English etymology  By Hensleigh Wedgwood

Some cross longuistic examples can be found here.

http://books.google.com/books?id=90RAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR27#v=onepage&q&f=false

Rajmaan (talk) 22:29, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

"Cross-linguistic cognates"

The page currently claims "Because of the nature of onomatopoeia, there are many cross-linguistic cognates of onomatopoetic sounds." On this page, cognate seems to be used to mean words which are derived from a common phenomenon, such as all of the onomatopoeia for kissing being derived from the sound of people kissing (presumably). However, the term cognate in linguistics means two words which are derived from one earlier word, such as the English word "father", the Italian "padre", and the German "vater", are all direct descendants of PIE *pəter. I am unsure of how to adequately rephrase this. Calling this a list of translated onomatopoeia seems the most accurate to me, but such a name raises the issue of the point of having this page on Wikipedia at all rather than on Wiktionary. For now, I am merely adding the disputed tag.198.29.34.242 (talk) 02:23, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Obsolete "Clinking" section

Deleted the "clinking" section under "other" at the end of the article and was accused of vandalism. Apologies for not explaining my reason for deleting it at the time. The section is entirely obsolete. This article is for "cross-linguistic onomatopoeias", not simply a list of onomatopoeias. The "clinking" section contains only three words in English, and no other languages. Furthermore, the words "clink, tink, chink" are already listed further up the page under the header "Sharp Strike".

Also requesting the deletion of the section "White Water" as it contains only one language and one word. That is not "cross-linguistic". Perhaps move it to another section and point out that it applies only to white water?

Just a comment

This is an awesome page and should be a site of the day! 193.167.124.158 (talk) 10:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Request to delete "Eagle soaring" section

The "Eagle soaring" column of the "Wild birds" table has only one entry in it. It should be deleted. Maybe it could be replaced with an "Eagle screeching" column, for which there are more examples: "scree" or "kikiki" in English and "صعير" (sa'eer) or غقغق (ghaq ghaq) in Arabic, among others. --Chumash11 (talk) 15:03, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Dubious Italian onomatopoeias

«Glu glu» is only used for the drinking sound, not for swallowing. As far as I know, there is no commonly used onomatopoeia for swallowing in spoken Italian; in comic books, «glom» is sometimes used.

«Rutt» simply does not exist as a belching onomatopoeia in Italian. It looks like an invented word based on «rutto» (belch, noun) and «ruttare» (to belch, verb).

For coughing, «coff coff» (clearly derived from English «koff») is sometimes used in comic books. --Sdrumma 31 January 2019 —Preceding undated comment added 09:59, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

My additions to Basque language were reverted.

User EN-Jungwon reverted my additions to Basque language. I got this messagge:

Hello, I'm EN-Jungwon. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions—specifically this edit to Cross-linguistic onomatopoeias—because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the Help desk. Thanks. EN-Jungwon (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

So why wheren't they constructive? Just because he decided so?

gilentxo (talk) 16:45, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Lede please

What is this table supposed to tell me? It lacks context. i kan reed (talk) 17:52, 8 December 2020 (UTC)