Re: ONOMATOPOEIA: Check out "Cross Linguistic Phonethemes"
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, March 31, 2002, 14:25 |
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En réponse à J Y S Czhang <czhang23@...>:
Well, wrong hypothesis (that the meaning of a phoneme derives from its
pronunciation, the simple fact that there are so many different kinds of
languages proves it wrong) and partial database (all languages presented but
one are Indo-European, and the correspondances shown are actually cognates, so
the appearance of the same string is explained historically rather than by a
supposed "sound-meaning". For the only non-Indo-European language presented,
Indonesian, more than half the words shown are actually loanwords from Indo-
European languages, and thus prove absolutely nothing!) brings to stupid claims
like those. I really can't understand why people can't accept that the sign is
mostly arbitrary (of course, there are onomatopoeic words, but even those are
culturally conditioned. Look at the Japanese onomatopoeia for instance. Most
Westerners wouldn't recognise the sound it is supposed to represent), and that
nothing in the sound of the word "straight" has straightness in it, except in
the ears of those who speak English...
And the fact that words are arbitrary makes things so much more fun! Wouldn't
it be boring if all humans connected the same sound to the same concept?
Christophe.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.
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