onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: MudGuard
Date: 17 Jun 99 - 01:35 PM

Wolfgang,
what about Straßenbahnschienenritzenreinigungsfahrzeugherstellerchefsekretärin...(secretary of the boss of the company producing the vehicles to clean the railways of an urban tramway)
Andreas

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: skarpi
Date: 17 Jun 99 - 01:36 PM

Halló folks,

mine is " krunk,krunk" sound from the rawen wicth we call " krummi " here in Iceland. we have a song about the raven or krummi and I think Ill write it down for you.

krummi krunkar úti, kallar á nafna sinn, Ég fann höfuð á hrúti, hrygg og gæruskinn. krunk,krunk, kroppaðu með mér, krummi nafni minn.

If you want to know what those words mean I might tell you later, we have a few more about the raven.

bless skarpi Iceland.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 03:39 AM

Andreas,
fine words, now should we try to come up with one that is longer than one line here and look what it does to Max' editor?

Steve,
it was gentle fun and never a doubt about it. I only answered at such length for the idea to make up your own words by putting them together always has puzzled me. I once met an Englishman in the Lake District who was teacher of German. After a couple of pints we went to the loo together (which had no urinals, just a wall) and I started urinating figures at the wall. He then asked me in German: "Would it be proper German if I now called you 'Kunstpinkler'?" (artful pisser) Yes I said and that's a sign that you really are good in German when you start making your own words and they are correct German.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 03:49 AM

But is it der die or das? Ireally should learn the language. Actually, I think I'm one of the very few people who enjoys grammar.

Nice one, Skarpi - it does kind of roll off the tongue! There was a science fiction novel in the seventies called "Kronk" (from the noise mafde by a raven in the last chapter). It was written by a British author; which is strange, begause our ravens go "caw".

Steve

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 10:21 AM

If you listen carefully, Steve, they actually say 'nevermore'. This is true. And yes, I have been down the pub this lunchtime. So have you, judgfinbg bny yuore trypiongg.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 11:49 AM

While we're on animal sounds, Donald Swann (of Flanders and...)used to do a song ,allegedly in Greek (must have been ancient Greek of Katheravousa 'cos I could't recognise any of the words), which was like "Old MacDonald had a farm" with cats going "mew mew" etc , and the title "Kokoraki" was supposed to be "cock-a-doodle-do" in Greek. Perhaps Theodore can enlighten us if it is genuine!
Whenever I'm in Greece, the cockerels seem to wake up just after the dogs go to sleep but before the donkeys and goats start! An extra Metaxas 3-star usually helps me sleep through!
Xerete

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Bert
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 12:55 PM

Hey Roger,

It was just like that in Bahrain.
At some unearthly hour the Muezzin would walk through the village on his way to the Mosque.
At the sound of his footsteps the neighbor's dog would start barking, this would wake up the dog down the street who would wake up a rooster or two, who would wake up a donkey.

Eventually all the barking and crowing and braying would quieten down.
Then the Muezzin would start his call which would start the dog barking which would again waken every animal in the village.

Eventually, just as it started getting quiet again the first of the faithful would walk down the street on the way to their prayers and the dog would............

Bert.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Bert
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 01:05 PM

I suppose cacophany would be the word.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Barbara
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 01:32 PM

a sussurus of wind in the grass
slime
wiggly
being around too much tintinabulation can give you tintinitis

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: cleod
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 02:29 PM

hi shula, butterfly in filipino is paru-paro -- sound familiar?

and kc, piyo piyo is also used by the japanese as the sound your beeper makes ^_^

tik-tila-ok is a rooster's crow in filipino (i used to think they sounded more like ur-urer-er!)

cat in (fookien)chinese is pronounced 'nyao' and dog is 'kao'

question: what is 'ouch' in other languages? I know it's 'aray' in filipino and 'itai' in japanese...

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 02:35 PM

'ouch' is 'au' in German and our roosters sound 'kikeriki', our cats, of course, 'miau', and our dogs 'wauwau'

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Bert
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 03:29 PM

Hagar the Horrible's dog 'Snert' goes VOOF and Helga's duck goes KVACK

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: The Shambles
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 04:18 PM

I'm with Skarpi.

Ravens 'Kronk'.

Nearly all of the local names for birds in Shetland are from their calls.

Terns are 'tirriks'. Curlews are 'whaarps' and Whimbels (which are smaller versions) are 'peerie' (small) 'whaarps'.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: LEJ
Date: 18 Jun 99 - 04:24 PM

Not really onomatopoeic, but in one of John Masefield's poems about the sea he refers to fishing boats as "scud-thumpers", and to "the seal's wide spindrift gaze". Spindrift is the spray thrown off by breaking waves in high wind.

LEJ

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Margo
Date: 19 Jun 99 - 12:42 AM

And a cow's moo in French is appropriately meuh.

I love the bilateral butterfly symmetry.

Hey, I've heard plucked guitar strings called a twang. (That depends on how you're plucking)

I've seen a concertina's sound described as a honk. (A pleasant honk, which seems like an oxymoron to me) Isn't there a better word for that wonderful instrument?

Margarita

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: obloquy67
Date: 19 Jun 99 - 01:05 AM

I personally like finding wearable onomatopoeiae, like bangles and flip-flops, as well as edible oxymorons, such as jumbo shrimp & non-dairy creamer.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: MudGuard
Date: 19 Jun 99 - 08:18 AM

In Germany, the few ravens that are still left "krächzen"!

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Mar 16 - 06:31 PM

Ha! Nobody touched upon the Arabic word for BAT -- that's the Fledermaus animal, not the baseball implement.

The Arabic word for bat is "wat-wat."

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 03:35 AM

Slash ---

In all its various senses of

Cut with a sharp instrument - both noun & verb
A stroke with a flexible instrument of corporal punishment
An act of urination

& probably others which don't arise to mind at the moment.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 03:47 AM

in a shady nook, by a babbling brook

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: GUEST,Brian Grayson
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 05:01 AM

Shula's 'parpar' reminded me of the utterly onomatopoeic Ivrit word for a bottle: 'bakbook'(think of the glugging sound of liquid pouring from a bottle. For that matter, 'bottle' is reminiscent of the same sound, especially when spoken by a Cockney...

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: GUEST,LynnT
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 04:25 PM

And a cork in Hebrew is a 'pekak' -- emphasis on the second syllable -- which is of course the sound it makes when you pull it out of the bakbook. A pekak is also the person on a kibbutz who does whatever job needs doing -- a floater or cork filling the most immediate holes.

Lynn

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 05:24 PM

The Russian for violin is "skripka".

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: GUEST,Gealt
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 05:31 PM

Thomas Gray's Elegy

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea....

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;....


http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dsucha/elegy.html

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: frogprince
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 06:43 PM

And sometimes, when folks are amorous but otherwise quiet, you hear a little repetitive sound that could be spelled "fwup, fwup, fwup, fwup, but that's not the spelling for that that happened to become customary.

Subject: RE: onomatopoeias: your favorites in all language
From: GUEST,Don Day
Date: 30 Mar 16 - 12:46 PM

I just LOVE Vin Garbutts little story from about 15 or so years ago when he related the origin of the name of a midland town built by the roman invaders. A mattress was thrown from an upper floor of a roman high-rise. "That'll do" said the mayor. "We'll call it Biddulph. Brilliant!

I still laugh at it.