a while ago i had a strange
thought regarding
onomatopoeia.
along the lines of "why does it differ in different languages?"
my own private research lead me to references on
linguistics,
where it was claimed that language is comprised of components.
those being:
phonology - a sound/sign system; what noises are used.
morphology - rules for sound sequencing; ngifxupj --how do you pronounce that?
semantics - but what does it mean?
lexicon - a dictionary of the words you know
syntax - you all use computers, you know what this is
...and my question was answered thus:
each language has its own set of sounds (phonology), some have more
some have less, some are just different.
not all sounds occur in every language.
picture the
german general dude from all those old
ww2 movies,
"ve vill crush your pitiful army!"
or the
japanese business man,
"he-ro, ee i rike your jacketto"
these are examples of languages other than
english which dont include all the english sounds.
before you start feeling
superior, for your superior language, try saying
oeuf (egg in
french), ryuuu (dragon in japanese) or pretty much anything in russian.
anyway....
each language has different rules for combining sounds (morphology) also,
no doubt you tried to say the above examples, may have even uttered some noise.
if you dont speak french or japanese, chances are, you where wrong.
you dont know each languages morphology.
its nothing personal, i dont speak french, and can barely get by in japanese.
and so....
apply this to what you know about onomatopoeia,
and you get different words for different languages.
case closed.
but,
why is the phonology different?
how did it evolve through the ages to produce such marked diferences
consider the differences between
tonal & non-tonal languages......
research continues.