[worldsoup]

Super interesting article, as a native english speaker who lived in Japan for many years and speak Japanese fluently, he pointed out a lot of things I always took for granted in Japanese (and never recognized as unique). One things I was hoping he would point out, and that I always found extremely unique in Japanese, was the giyongo (basically onomatopoeia). Japanese uses these extensively and the sounds can have extremely sensory driven meanings. They use these giyongo to describe physical textures (tsuru-tsuru is something smooth and slippery), hard to describe souns (pera pera is the sound of speaking a foreign language), flutently), actual sounds (tatata is the sound of fast running), a general feeling (bisho bisho is the sound of being soaked), specific actions (gussuri is the sound of being out cold), even specific emotions (zukizuki is the sound of extreme pain). There are hundreds if not thousands of these and I think they also make the language, as the author describes, 'rich and quirky and different'.

[thedailymail]

Minor pedantry (sorry!), but it's giongo (擬音語) not giyongo. There's a related term gitaigo (擬態語）, both of which fall under the catgeorical giseigo (擬声語). All are generally translated as onomatopoeia in English. The basic distinction is that giongo are used to express sounds made by physical things, both living and inaminate, whereas gitaigo are used to express abstract effects, such as emotional states, energy levels, etc.

The Japanese-language wikipedia page goes into it in more detail: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%93%AC%E5%A3%B0%E8%AA%9E

[ternaryoperator]

Your point only deepens my appreciation of Japanese (which was already deep). To have two different categories of onomatopoeia is just sensational.

[atribecalledqst]

I've started to suspect recently that an important secret of being able to sound natural in conversational Japanese is using a LOT of onomatopoeia words. I've considered mining all of them from jmdict and studying them specifically.

[jankcorn]

I have always liked the book "日本語擬態語辞典" by Gomi Taro: <https://bookclub.kodansha.co.jp/product?item=0000193814>

It has great illustrations that quickly get the idea across for Japanese onomatopoeia.

To give an idea of what it is like, here are a couple of example pages: <https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/akky_san/imgs/b/2/b21ad72f.jpg> <https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/akky_san/imgs/3/4/34cf6c82.jpg>

Quite fun to read!

[atribecalledqst]

Whoa! Thanks for the recommendation! This looks like it'll be right up my alley.

[anigbrowl]

That's a great idea. I love them because many of them are evocative of either an actual real sound, or play with some loan word. This makes them easier to remember, plus they don't need any kind of special conjugation.

Abbreviation, repetition, and stacking bits of words together are a big difference between natural vs formal Japanese language skills. It's very Lego-like that way.

[worldsoup]

definitely, you really need to master these to be anything close to native level

[THENATHE]

For me, the part that is most wild is that I have never heard a Japanese onomatopoeia that sounds remotely close to what I would actually assume the sound to sound like. when I was a little kid and I was studying Japanese, it always made me think that Japanese people had different ears than I did, because if they're hearing all of these sounds the way they are and I'm hearing them all the way I am, there's no possible universe where we are describing them the same way, which would mean that we have to hear them differently. I now realize it's likely more of a societal thing, but it's still interesting nonetheless

[johnea]

It is really interesting!

I find it very similar to english though. Cows don't actually make a sound anything like "moo", and birds don't "chirp".

I think you're right on when you say it's cultural.

Another important thing that shapes these things in Japanese is just how old the culture is. So much is inherited from ancient times...

[latentsea]

There are thousands at least. I recall seeing an entire dictionary of them once in the library at my university.

To this day I still discover new ones that constantly amaze me someone was able to put a sound to it. I think my favorite to date is probably mozomozo. My wife used it to describe a baby flailing it's arms around. I was like ok... What do you mean? She repeated the action of flailing the arms around. I laughed. Oh the Japanese.

[frereubu]

I bumped into another English guy who was teaching English in Japan and he made me laugh when he told me that the name of my favourite conveyor sushi restaurant in London - Kulu Kulu - meant "round and round". Sounds like it might be similar to these phrases.

[Delk]

くるくる (usually romanized as 'kurukuru') does seem to mean going round and round: https://jisho.org/search/kurukuru

Japanese isn't generally considered to have the equivalent of the 'l' sound from most other languages, and it rather has a sound that's perhaps somewhere between 'l' and a rolling 'r'. In romanized text it's generally written as 'r'. Transliteration isn't really unambiguous in the end, though, and there are multiple ways of romanizing Japanese, so while romanizing くるくる as 'kulukulu' doesn't sound like a very common transliteration, it may be possible.

Also, 'kuru' means 'to come', but I don't know if that's related.

[jonhohle]

It’s amusing that the characters even look like a conveyor belt.

[frereubu]

Thanks for the explanation. I'd heard about the r / l issues with romanizing Japanese but hadn't made the link.

[juped]

it's best explained to anglophones as a voiced 'd', not anything to do with 'r' or 'l'

[Lammy]

Relevant We ♥ Katamari: KuruKuru Rock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsNvLAiPc8

[kbf]

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_Kuru_Kururin

[wulfeet]

I remember talking to a Japanese coworker about some pain I was experiencing, and they asked if it was like zukizuki or - some other word.

[worldsoup]

ya there are many different giyongo to describe various states of exhaustion...probably due to the workaholic culture that is prevalent in Japan

[lIl-IIIl]

I think there are different onomatopoeia for different kinds of pain. English equivalent is probably when a doctor may ask if a pain is sharp, dull, pulsating, burning, etc.

[jameshart]

Careful... it's a little too easy to ascribe things like that to a superficial cultural trait.

English has a huge variety of terms for extreme tiredness: whacked, bushed, wiped out, worn out, drained, burned out, beat, knackered, fried, shattered, frazzled, zonked... must be the puritan work ethic or something.

We've even got a few onomatopoeia of our own: feeling kinda.. ugh.. meh... bleugh... I mean, whew, yeesh. Just... phew.

Maybe being tired is just the global human condition.

[edgyquant]

It may be due to Protestant work ethic, no idea, but non of the English words you cited are actual onomatopoeias

[jameshart]

Well, ぐたぐた, へとへと and よたよた aren't exactly onomatopoeias either.

[Jagerbizzle]

Not to mention "sigh", which I find impossible to say without also sighing.

[zenogantner]

"Fifty Sounds" by Polly Barton is a book-length essay about this. Very entertaining read. Plus some Wittgenstein thrown in ...

[tarentel]

I read a lot of manga and they often have a lot of hyper specific sound effects. I don't speak Japanese but always found this interesting. I guess this explains it. Thank you.