Topics: Word - Linguistics - Iconic Sign
An ideophone is a word that evokes ideas in sound imitation to express an action, manner or property.
In general, ideophones do not exist in English, but they are abundant in some languages like Japanese:
- キラキラ (kirakira) for ‘glitter’
- がらがら (garagara) for ‘rattle’
- ニコニコ (nikoniko) for ‘smile’
Ideophones are examples of iconic signs.