We explain what an onomatopoeia is, how this linguistic representation and onomatopoeia of animals can be classified.
What is an onomatopoeia?
Onomatopoeia is the linguistic representation of natural or non-discursive sounds through words. That is, the formation of words in the language itself to imitate certain non-verbal sounds, such as the sounds of animals, of the natural phenomena, of impacts, of devices, etc.
Onomatopoeias are considered a stylistic device of the language and are often used in literary works, radio soap operas andcomic books, in addition to being characteristics of children's speech, in which animals are named according to their onomatopoeia: "the woof-woof" for dog. Onomatopoeia are not universal, however, and each language has its own, according to its phonetic and cultural characteristics.
Onomatopoeias are usually distinguished according to the idea they seek to convey, as follows:
- Auditory onomatopoeias. Those that represent the sound using words created expressly for this, such as "tick-tock" for the sound of the clock, "boom" for the firing of a cannon, and so on.
- Visual onomatopoeias. Characteristics of a certain type of poetry, sought to represent a visual image through the spatial arrangement of words and / or letters on the page, creating the so-calledcalligrams or metaphors graphics.
Animal onomatopoeias
The most common onomatopoeia of animal sounds in Spanish are:
- Chickens: cheep
- Roosters: kikiriki
- Chickens: clo
- Ducks: quack
- Cats: meow
- Dogs: Woof
- Sheep: bee
- Pigs: oinc
- Frogs: croac
- Cows: moo
- Crickets: cri-cri
- Bees: bzz
- Snakes: H.Hs
- Horses: iiih
- Howls: auu
- Grunts: grr