Tuesday 17 March 2009

Onomatopoeia

From Wikipedia:
"Onomatopoeia (also spelled onomatopœia, from Greek: ονοματοποιΐα) also called imitative harmony, is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, such as animal noises like "oink" or "meow", or suggesting its source object, such as "boom", "zoom", "click", "bunk", "clang", "buzz", "zap", or "bang". The word is a synthesis of the Greek words όνομα (onoma, = "name") and ποιέω (poieō, = "I make" or "I create") thus it essentially means "name creation", although it makes more sense combining "name" and "I do", meaning it is named (and spelled) as it sounds (e.g. quack, bang, etc.).Onomatopoeia (also spelled onomatopœia, from Greek: ονοματοποιΐα) also called imitative harmony, is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, such as animal noises like "oink" or "meow", or suggesting its source object, such as "boom", "zoom", "click", "bunk", "clang", "buzz", "zap", or "bang". The word is a synthesis of the Greek words όνομα (onoma, = "name") and ποιέω (poieō, = "I make" or "I create") thus it essentially means "name creation", although it makes more sense combining "name" and "I do", meaning it is named (and spelled) as it sounds (e.g. quack, bang, etc.)"

On this notion we could imitate the sound of a wave, or an explosion using onomatopoeic words. 'Imitative harmony' sounds lovely.

Aisha

2 comments:

  1. I was thinking along these lines too. As Raine was saying about trying to make words into interactive objects. Perhaps make 'contraptions' which people can operate and make onomatopoeia from. Like a popping balloons. Slapping pieces of wood together or other things which make 'noise-words'.

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  2. I like this. I think we should try to translate sound into something more physical, Linguistics to semiotics, really lateral, symbolic interpretations of language.

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