Onomatopoeia and Vocabulary Evolution in Mando’a

[Tra'nau]

You might remember me as a frequent song translator and Green Day fan from the Song Translations thread. Well, I was thinking about a translation of one of their songs, “Bang Bang,” when I realized I had encountered a problem- how would ‘bang’ translate? It’s an onomatopoeia that adheres to the letters in Mando’a, so in theory, it would be universal, right? But I thought about, and realized that it probably wasn’t the case.

Nothing necessitates that correspondence- for instance, in English we use “bark bark!” or “arf arf!” to represent a dog barking, while in the Russian language, the noise is represented with “gav gav!” (“Гав-гав!”), very different. And, sometimes, there’s a complete disconnect- the Japanese “Zaazaa” (ざあざあ or ザアザア) refers to the sound of rain, which English doesn’t really have a standardized onomatopoeia for (we would immediately associate ‘meow’ with a cat but not ‘shsh’ with rain). That realization caused me to start researching.

That’s how I discovered the Bowwow, Dingdong, and Pooh-pooh theories. Yes, real linguistic theories. These describe different theories on the very beginnings of language- I copied their definitions from the Merriam-Webster dictionary below.

Definition of bowwow theory
: a theory that language originated in imitations of natural sounds (such as those of birds, dogs, or thunder)

Definition of dingdong theory
: a theory that language originated out of a natural correspondence between objects of sense perception and the vocal noises which were part of early humans' reaction to them

Definition of pooh-pooh theory
: a theory that language originated in interjections which gradually acquired meaning

These may allow for words to be traced back into onomatopoeia forms that fit well with the language that they would be used in accordance with.

With all that said, I went back to my “Bang Bang” problem. The best I could find was the root ‘tra’ because of its connection to ‘tracyn’, as ‘bang’ had brought images of explosions to mind. From there, I looked at worldwide equivalents, where I found a lot of bilabial plosives (b and p) as well as similar noises. I pulled it all together to get ‘trab’ for ‘bang,’ making the title of that translation “Trab Trab” (after ALL THAT). (Note: I felt that ‘Trap’ sounded more like gun/laserfire rather than a large explosion, which is why I went for voiced (b) rather than unvoiced (p). That doesn’t mean that ‘trap’ can’t still be used…)

Any thoughts on this? Would you have done it differently? Any other onomatopoeias that seem to fit? Please let me know, I find it all very interesting.

[Vlet Hansen]

That's actually an excellent line of inquiry, and one that I think we might have heretofore neglected entirely! I'll have to think for a while about how I feel on the subject, but so far I feel your idea is perfectly serviceable (though maybe putting the cart before the horse linguistically).

[sho’woor]

To me, ”trab trab”/“trap trap”/“tra tra” brings to mind the sound of an assault rifle. Short bursts of fire, y’know. Which may or may not be relevant to people who use guns that shoot energy beams. The equivalent of English “pew pew” might actually be closer to the sound of gunfire.

And now I have a mental image of a buir going “what does the tooka say?” with their ik’aad. Mando’a may need a different set of animal sounds from English.

The root “sho” for “sea” is imho very onomatopoeic. If you wanted an onomatopoeia for the sound of waves (or even breathing, which sounds similar), it could “sho sho”? Reduplication seems pretty popular with onomatopoeias in natural languages. “Sha sho” would be literally “at sea”, hmm, so perhaps it would become “sha’sho”, “adrift”? Although perhaps an expression closer to “dead in the water” would work better in Mando’a, maybe “kyr’ayc o’r tra“?

Btw, English does have an onomatopoeia for the sound of rain: “pitter patter”.

[Tra'nau]

I would agree with ‘sho, sho’ as an onomatopoeia for the sound of the ocean. And, thanks for the input on pitter patter- I don’t know if it has to do with my location in the USA or how I learned to speak, but I’ve always associated pitter patter/heard it associated with the steps of a baby.