Re: onomatopoetic animal sounds
From: | J Matthew Pearson <pearson@...> |
Date: | Friday, April 13, 2001, 16:55 |
daniel andreasson wrote:
> Obvious ObConlang: Is there a connection between the names
> of the animals and the sounds they make in your respective
> conlangs? :)
In Tokana, owls are "houn", frogs are "mots", and wild boar are
"sonki". The first word is clearly onomatopoetic in origin, and I
suspect the other two are as well.
Tokana used to have an onomatopoetic word for cat, namely "miua"
[miwa], but then I banished cats, and so the word no longer exists.
[When I decided that the Tokana lived in North America in an
alternate universe where there had been no colonization from the Old
World, I restricted their inventory of domestic animals to those
which an advanced society in the Americas with little or no contact
with Eurasia might be expected to have, namely dogs (brought over on
the Bering land bridge or domesticated from native wolves), llamas
(imported from South America), turkeyfowl, and ducks/geese. No
cats, chickens, cows, horses, pigs, sheep, or goats.]
Matt.
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