Word Power: Onomatopoeia

Today’s lesson in Word Power is to understand the etymology and history behind the word onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia (Noun): [on-o-mat-o-poe-ia]

1. The formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.  (American Heritage Dictionary)

Etymology

In order to understand the history of the word onomatopoeia, we must trace the word all the way back to Ancient Greece.  Although most of the words that we use today are derived from the Latin language, the Latin language was heavily influenced by the Ancient Greek language.  However, there are words that we use today which did not become Latin-ized (so to speak), such as onomatopoeia.

Ονομα (onoma)

Ονομα is a noun in the Ancient Greek language that means “word” or “name”.  The genitive form of ονομα is ονοματος, which when we drop the ς (final sigma) off of the word, we are left with ονοματο (onomato); the first half of the word onomatopoeia.  The genitive form (also called the possessive form) makes a noun show possession over another noun with the use of the preposition “of”.  We see the word ονομα in our language today in words, such as onomatomania (obsession with the meaning of words/names) or onomatophobia (fear of the meanings of words/names).

Ποιεω (poieo)

Ποιεω is an Ancient Greek verb that means “to make, produce, cause, etc”.  The Ancient Greeks used this word often in sentence structure to illustrate normal daily activities.  We can see instances of the word ποιεω in the English language in such words as poet (one who makes) and poem (something made).

Synopsis

Language is not created out of thin air, the Ancient Greeks yearning to create a word that meant “to make names”, combined the two words, ονοματο and ποιεω, making ονοματοποιεω (onomatopoeio).  As the Ancient Greek language evolved, so did the word onomatopoeio.  It became a word meaning “to make a word imitating a sound”, which is how it is used today when describing noises that animals or people make.  Some examples of this are “hiss”, “boom”, “bang”, etc.  The spelling also changed to include the “a” that you see at the end of this word, the word now looked something like onomatopoiia.  It wasn’t until 1577, that the first “i” was replaced with an “e” to give us the word onomatopoeia.

Extra Credit

Comic books serve as a great example of how an onomatopoeia functions.  As a kid growing up reading all types of comics, I would constantly read words like “bam” or “wham” when a superhero was fighting a villain.  Before I even knew what onomatopoeia meant, I knew what those words meant.  Marvel comics is known for creating the onomatopoeia “thwip!” for Spider-Man shooting his web, as well as the word “snikt!” to give sound to Wolverine changing over to claws.

Tune in next Thursday for a breakdown of the word President.

Image Used In Post

Onomatopoeia image used is courtesy of Flickr user Duchamp published under the CC license.