Comments on: Early sources on African ideophones, part II: Vidal on Yoruba, 1852

By: Interesting stuff #2 « The Outer Hoard

Interesting stuff #2 « The Outer Hoard — Sat, 08 May 2010 13:49:26 +0000

[...] The Ideophone writes a blog about African linguistics, and an introductory series which began here has recently been continued here. [...]

By: Sally Morris

Sally Morris — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:41:30 +0000

O E Vidal (an ancestor of mine) was Bishop of Sierra Leone from 1852 to 1853 or 4, when he tragically died at sea between SL and Nigeria, leaving a widow and infant daughter who were brought back to the UK via a fraught voyage with a nurse and a goat (for milk for the infant)

By: Early sources on African ideophones, part IV: S.W. Koelle on Kanuri, 1854 — The Ideophone

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:46:04 +0000

[...] shared by many African languages. Note that Aku is an old term for Yoruba, the language for which Vidal had claimed independently that "This singular feature of the Yoruba language is unique, and therefore I shall [...]

By: Mark Dingemanse

Mark Dingemanse — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:53:37 +0000

Yeah, these verbs do have an ideophonic ring to them, don't they? I usually think of verbs like twinkle and glitter as ideophonic verbs in English; your examples are nice in that they are not about visual or auditory perceptions (to which the bulk of ideophones in English seem to be limited).

By: khawaji

khawaji — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:18:06 +0000

Does this indicate that certain verbs in english could be considered ideophonic, since they can only be used with one specific noun. I am thinking specifically of “twiddling my thumbs” and “gnashing my teeth,” though I am sure there must be other examples. You can’t (in current usage anyways), gnash or twiddle anything but teeth and thumbs, respectively.