Monthly Archives: February 2024

What are ideophones? Iconicity research from the lab to the field and back again!

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An excerpt from a Zoom presentation about ideophones.

The first part of a presentation on ideophones in Amazonian Kichwas and Standard Turkish. In this section I define iconicity briefly and discuss some points of historical interest to the field, from field work in West Africa to Ramachandran and Hubbard’s ‘Kiki Bouba’ experiment.

Here are two examples of ideophones, one from Turkish and one from Pastaza Kichwa

An example of a Turkish ideophone in context: ‘The rain is pouring down’
Transcription: ɲa ʃuk pasaj ɲa kintaw puɲuʃkani Translation: all of a sudden I fell asleep, taw (Translation and transcription by Professor Janis Nuckolls). More examples can be found at her website: https://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/

A post by Austin Howard, MA

Florida State University (Doctoral research, student and instructor of Spanish)