Re: onomatopeyics in conlangs

At 16:34 20/11/98 -0500, you wrote:
>The way we transfer the sound of animals and other sounds from nature
>differs culturally...  let's take an example
>a barking dog would sound:
>  Arf /&@f/? or Wow /waw/ to an Anglosaxon.
>  Guau /gwaw/ to a Spanish spoken
>  Vov /vOv/ to a Suede...
>
>And a lot of different sounds for different cultures.  I would like to
>know how the following onomatopeyics are render in different
>nat/conlangs...
>
>   animal     onomatopeyic
> description     sound
>(in English)  (in Spanish)
>    dog         guau      /gwaw/
>    cat         miau      /mjaw/
>    roster      kikiriki' /ki.ki.ri'ki/
>    pig         oing|oinc /oiNg/ /oiNk/
>    kermit      ribit     /'rri.bit/
>    bee         bzz       /bz:/ (odd orthography)
>    gun shoot   bang      /baNg/
>    explosion   pum       /pum/
>
>Has any conlang used onomatopeyics for genera vocabulary?
>
        In French:
dog             ouah            /wa/
cat             miaou           /mjaw/
roster          cocorico        /ko.ko.ri.'ko:/
pig             nif nif         /nif nif/
kermit          croa            /kro.'a/
bee             bzzz            /bz:/
lion/tiger      groa            /gro.'a/
bird            cui cui         /kyi kyi/ (/y/: semi-vowel related to French=
 "u"
gunshot         bang            /baNg/
explosion       boum            /bum/
clock           tic tac         /tik tak/

        In Japanese:
cat             nyan            /njan/

        In German:
dog             wau             /vaw/

That's all I know. I've been thinking of onomatopoeia for my conlangs, but
the problem is that the sounds that are so natural for me (a cat says
"miaou", that's almost obvious) are just due to the phonology and culture of
French. So it's difficult to create the onomatopoeia for a lang with another
phonology.

>-- Carlos Th
>
>
                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"R=E9sister ou servir"

homepage: http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html