Re: Japanese onomatopoeia [link]:
...This illustrates an unexpected fact of onomatopoeia. Although each language imitates sounds occurring in nature which are presumably the same everywhere in the world, each language interprets these sounds in accord with its own sound system and culture.
In addition to those onomatopoeia which imitate the sounds of nature, called gisei-go in Japanese, Japanese recognizes two additional types of onomatopoeia: one that basically suggests states of the external world (gitai-go), and another that basically names internal mental conditions and sensations (gijoo-go). There is some overlap between the two.
For example, while the word "bashi-bashi" suggests the natural sound of smacking some one across the head, "ton-ton" suggests someone's knocking on a door, and "guu-guu" depicts someone in a deep sleep accompanied by snoring. Gitai-go terms such as "gocha-gocha", a state of disorder common to apartments, and "pika-pika", which depicts a shiny object but also describes a "spic and span" place of residence, seem to be completely opaque to non-Japanese (although pika-pika is probably related to the verb hikaru "to shine".
[I used the phrase "Pika pika" in the Talking Heads song “Swamp” to refer to the Hiroshima explosion]
The fact that whole dictionaries consisting of so-called Japanese onomatopoeia, gisei-go, gitai-go, and gijoo-go, exist testifies to the fact that many of these expressions are equally opaque and require interpretation to the Japanese themselves.
Additionally, if the distinction between the external gitai-go and internal gijoo-go onomatopoeia isn't clear, there is good reason for this. While some of these forms are clearly descriptive of internal states, e.g., ira-ira "frustrated" (the Japanese press labeled the seemingly unending war between Iran and Iraq the "Ira-Ira War"), there are many which can be used to describe both external or internal states, for example, "gocha-gocha", which can quite accurately describe either the cluttered state of my office or that of my mind.
Can you imagine? States of mind have sounds?! Concepts have sounds!? Who’d ‘a thunk it? It this a kind of synethesia? So therefore a musical composition (musique concrete, most likely) COULD be a real map or analogy or model of a progression of concepts —a sonic map of a progression of thoughts… sometimes proceeding one after another, in traditional logical fashion, and sometimes overlapping, rushing onward, and sometimes happening simultaneously — as sounds certainly do, an maybe thoughts too? Each sound corresponds to an idea or concept, and then logically (or not) leads on to the next… eventually arriving as some sonic/psychic conclusion. Or merely an ending. Who needs philosophy? Who needs books? We have sounds.
[See Also: 4.16.05 post re: songwriting]
