00:12
Hello Len! Hi Asami! This is more like good morning Len than hello Len, but
in terms of my brain state. That's totally okay.
That aside, today is the first installation of 科学系ポッドキャスト of 2025 because
we were both busy in January and we skipped that one. So busy and it hasn't stopped for me yet,
but anyway. This month it is hosted by ドタバタ・グッドボタンのお二人で、
ケイちゃんとマー君のお二人ですね。 They put the theme for this month from their namesake,
ドタバタ. I was gonna ask if that was okay. All right. Yep. That was indeed the case.
As usual, ドタバタに関連していれば it can be anything. It doesn't have to be
any specific things, but it sounded like most people were going for
ドタバタ in their life. Given that this is like a 科学系ポッドキャスト, it's mostly
research-specific ドタバタ type things. I wanted to ask you, what's your thought? What
do you think about when you think about ドタバタ or when you hear ドタバタ?
Ah, okay. Well, so in this context, if I heard ドタバタ without any context, I would be like,
oh, it sounds... Yeah, if you just hear it in your conversation with your friends.
Yeah, I just... Well, so if I hear the word ドタバタ, right? Even out of context,
something internally makes it sound somewhat rhythmic, right? There's like a ドタバタ
ドタバタ ドタバタ, right? There's like a... You get a little beat going. So I don't know if
that's intended. There's probably some linguistic explanation there, but...
Probably, actually.
There's some feeling there. And then when I'm thinking about these ドタバタ or like just,
I guess just sounds, right? Things, sounds that I turn into words, right? That's the sort of space
we're working in. Yeah.
Right? On the day-to-day now, maybe there's less, but...
Have you heard people say that?
Like aloud?
Yeah.
It's... I don't, I don't think... I can't think of one. I'm having a hard time thinking of one.
03:00
Oh, okay. Interesting. Because I would say that ドタバタ is one of the more seamlessly
integrated onomatopoeia in Japanese languages, like modern Japanese vocabulary.
Okay.
There are onomatopoeias that you only really see in like written format or like in a poetic context,
but ドタバタ is like the word that people use to describe busyness, like restlessness.
And so, so the fact that you picked up that kind of rhythmic undertone is actually
correct effect of this onomatopoeia.
Sweet.
Where this word is supposed to make you think about sort of unsettled state or like somewhat
chaotic states where things are going everywhere and you don't really have a control over.
Ah, okay.
So 90% of the time people will use this word and it's like, how was your weekend? Like,
連休何してたの? Then they'll be like, めっちゃドタバタしててさ、何もできなかったよ。
Things like that.
Okay, okay.
That's like how like most of the time ドタバタ is used.
Man, I'm like, I am hunting my brain. Obviously this could have happened,
but without anything for ドタバタ to like stick to, maybe in my head, I didn't have
the context at the time to hold it. And hearing you say it, I go,
Yeah, 聞いたことがあるけど I don't remember actually like hearing it.
Yeah.
So it might be a...
Now you're going to be hyper aware of that.
I'm going to be hyper aware of it. Yeah. I'll, I'll do the thing that all English or
English, all language learners are doing, or perhaps benefit from doing, which is just use
the word until it loses meaning and then comes back to having meaning, you know, just keep
using it until it feels normal. Even something as simple as hello can sound really weird at first,
right? So now I'll just be like...
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Everything is ドタバタ.
You want it to be like a reflex, an automatic response.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But so, so because of this, I thought, well, we can also talk about how, you know,
ドタバタ my life is, your life is.
We could.
My life has been ドタバタ since like maybe end of grad school.
Like it has not stopped being not ドタバタ.
But, and I put that intentional double negatives there.
I feel like that's not going to fit into one episode.
Also, I feel like I've disclosed enough ドタバタ-ness here and there in our past episodes.
06:04
People are probably sick of hearing that.
I thought, well, I like this concept onomatopoeia.
I've already thrown that word around, but in Japanese, it's onomatopoeia.
So it's the same.
But yeah, in English, there's like a weird, weird little pia at the end instead of pe.
I wonder if that's like a singular versus plural kind of thing.
This is something I totally planned to look up and then forgot.
But let's continue and maybe I'll come up with some information momentarily.
Yeah, but I love the concept of onomatopoeia.
I love how of the two languages that I speak, they use it wildly differently,
even though they serve similar functions most of the time.
And so as anyone with an unimportant question does in 2025, I've asked
ChatGPT, why is Japanese onomatopoeia more flexible than that of English?
And ChatGPT gave me a surprisingly long answer, more than I needed.
But the gist of it is that there are a bunch of linguistic theories and scholars
have academically explored this topic on not just the nature of flexibility,
but have some considerations of why that is flexible in Japanese.
And flexible here means you can kind of make up an onomatopoeia in Japanese on the spot.
It doesn't usually in that specific local environment where that specific conversation
where presumably everyone is seeing the same scenery and experiencing the same thing,
you can kind of make up.
And you can make up in a completely sort of brand new way in terms of like,
okay, people know that usually for shiny things, you use kira kira or pika pika as like
a thing to convey the shininess of the object or something.
But depending on how you deliver it, kira kira or pika pika,
with the emphasis on the first half, or depending on whether you choose unusual onomatopoeia.
I don't know, I can't think of on the spot an example, but it will be, let's say,
it will be unusual if you use giran giran for the description of shininess,
09:05
as opposed to the typically used kira kira or pika pika.
Giran giran might also give you the shininess,
but it sounds with a combination of this guttural sound.
It sounds more aggressive and more in your face and things like that.
You can kind of make up on the spot.
And if you are really creative, you can also make it up on the spot,
like a completely brand new word combination, sound combination.
And it will probably, if you did it right, everyone in the same conversation would understand that.
That's a thing in Japanese onomatopoeia, flexibility.
And in English, at least in my experience, felt more like there's
set onomatopoeia to sound pairing.
And usually people don't deviate.
If there's like a bit of water going about, you might say splash.
And you don't really say splash for anything other than kind of liquids going all over the place.
Right, yeah.
But in Japanese, you can use splash to describe maybe how fast a train is going or something.
And that's the kind of flexibility you can make up in the spot.
Okay.
I feel like using that analogy, analogies are a big thing in English, that's a separate topic.
But like the ability to kind of redefine the usage of that sound word is something that you
see alongside the fact that the sort of sound words can be more flexibly attributed to different
situations, different places, different meanings to some extent.
Yes.
And in tradition of Japanese modern language, we can also make like a compound onomatopoeia.
So the example that comes up to my mind is like yuru yuru and fuwa fuwa.
And you can put together and say yuru fuwa.
And this was not a thing in my childhood.
It came around maybe I'm like in high school or college students.
I started seeing the word yuru fuwa thrown about in various contexts.
So yuru yuru is like something loose, right?
Like some looseness, something that's not quite set.
And fuwa fuwa describes like a fluffiness.
So like in a sense, you can see that they're kind of similar as far as
12:00
like kind of textures that they're trying to convey.
But yuru fuwa now I think means now that it's been popularized,
people have like somewhat of a common understanding of what a yuru fuwa means.
And it could be describing woman's hairstyle.
It can be describing fashion style.
It can also be describing a character like some anime character or human characteristic
that's like kind of happy-go-lucky, kind of bubbly.
You can use yuru fuwa as like a description to that as well.
So I love that Japanese onomatopoeia kind of like makes it possible these kind of inventions.
Yeah, there are inventions that also seem to, you hinted at this before, right?
Connect with like the people within a similar situation.
And I think it seems to be a core aspect of exchanging those feelings in that space
if you're going to get them across.
It's an attempt to put words into things that is otherwise difficult to do.
And I think that's why Japanese language enables this kind of improvisational aspects,
on-the-spot invention.
And yeah, I just don't know if English has that kind of flexibility.
It not.
Well, as we're pausing, I think to posit that question,
I would say it doesn't have this particular version
because I'm thinking to myself and I was also digging around
and I figured I would both do my own little searching
and join the bandwagon and ask a large language model.
And we're not going to get into the usage of these things
in the ways that they can be, you know, sort of properly,
just they are what they are for the moment.
But the bit that I would say in English
is that if you imagine this situation in which there is a setting,
a sound, a thing of which you don't have the word for right at the moment,
like you were saying,
and you end up kind of piecing these feeling words together
or these sound words together in order to express
what is as close as possible to that sensation.
15:03
In English, when I try,
and perhaps there is some other way of doing this,
but when I try to describe a new situation,
I end up doing not necessarily these onomatopoeic type words
but I would end up trying to probably three things.
Maybe make an analogy to something else, right?
Or make a comparison to something else.
You mentioned like, you know, let's say beautiful area.
Let's say it's like a flower field, right?
You know, you might not use one word, right?
You can go up in scale.
You can be like, oh, that's beautiful.
You know, it's, oh, that's pretty.
Oh, it's beautiful.
Oh, it's magnificent or something, right?
And you can upscale.
Yeah, okay, okay.
There's like tiers of amazingness.
Right.
There's tiers of amazingness versus perhaps you have like,
you know, kirei and like totemo kirei
and like, you know, sort of like upper.
But that's like the adding
because then I could also add very or something
to like magnificent and anyway, so there's tiers of things.
Then there's the comparisons,
which I think you definitely get within writing
as well as maybe communication
where like, oh, it's as beautiful as the fill in the blank, right?
It's as beautiful as the ocean waves,
you know, because it's a bunch of blue flowers
with like white hues.
Right, right, right.
Using like similes.
Yes.
And comparisons.
Yep.
And those types of descriptor type things
or something that gets,
it gets at the sensation you would have
in a different situation and drags it over to this one,
which I guess when I describe it like that
is sort of a similar intention.
It's just a different mechanism.
I think the intention is similar,
but I would say,
and don't at me because I'm not linguistic,
but I feel like that's not onomatopoeia by definition.
It's not onomatopoeia.
Yeah, it's not onomatopoeia.
I'm just, that's the thing an English speaker might do.
Right.
Because if I try to,
and this gets to what you were covering,
I think very well in terms of the space of different ways
you can do quote unquote onomatopoeia in Japanese
because there isn't one, there's more.
And so like there's onomatopoeia,
which is sound things in English,
but in Japanese in one of the sources,
perhaps we will share, right?
They break this up into giongo and gitaigo,
I think it was, right?
Which was the difference between sound ones
and state ones.
Yeah.
Like, and that isn't a thing.
I can't think of something in English
that I would be like,
the state of this object is a sound
or like is a word choice, right?
Like that's, yeah.
Yeah.
18:00
So there's technically three categories of onomatopoeia
in Japanese from the sources I've read.
Yeah, I'm getting, yeah.
It's giongo, gitaigo, and giseigo.
So giongo, gitaigo is the same thing as you described.
Giseigo is specifically for the sound of like animals
or like sound made by living things.
Right.
And that's another sort of easy cultural differences
you can spot, right?
Like how different languages describe
the way the dog barks is like one of the funnier.
Woof woof versus one one.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or like bow, what's bow wow?
Is that also a barking?
Bow wow is, yeah.
Bow wow is also a barking.
It's, I think it took on some other meaning.
It's in the back of my head.
Don't worry about it.
But something like that, right?
So, yeah.
And I think like one of the flexibility
of the use of the onomatopoeia in Japanese
is that you can go from the sound mimetic ones
like the giongo or the gisaigo.
And use those to describe the states like gitaigo
like in that specific context.
And maybe it's illuminating or funny
in that specific context.
Let's say heavy rain is usually described
as like zaaza ame ga futteru, right?
And that's a giongo.
It's the sound of the rain, like zaaza.
But if you say that like my heart is zaaza shiteru,
like watashi no kokoro ga zaaza shiteru,
like, you know, it's an odd one.
Maybe you've never heard of people saying that.
But in that context,
you will probably understand
what this person is trying to say.
And like that's the kind of level of looseness
in grammatical structures
that Japanese onomatopoeia has inherently.
And whereas I think because English onomatopoeias
are usually like adverbs or adjectives,
it's just like a more strict incorporation
into the grammar
that doesn't let you play around as much.
Yeah, I think I'm still in agreement with you.
At the same time, your example,
which I think was perfect
in terms of nailing this sentiment home, right?
Thank you, thank you.
Yeah, this like, there's multiple ways,
you know, there's these categories,
but they can kind of cross.
And this crossing simply carries
the words meaning with it, right?
Not just simply,
that's actually a very complicated process, right?
For both people to understand,
but then they can't use.
It's like you're asking a lot from the other person.
Like, have the same leap of imagination as you do.
21:01
Yes, and this is a huge thing we ask
in any time we're telling a story
or trying to communicate a thing, right?
But it is a big deal
when you carry something over
that is kind of holding a lot more
than the word itself can tell you.
And that's important.
Now, okay, so za za, right?
This idea of like heavy rain.
And I was thinking, okay,
what are the sounds?
And I thought like a pitter-patter.
A pitter-patter is like a sort of tapping of that,
you know, maybe not heavy rain.
Heavy rain is probably a bit different.
The Japanese equivalent would be like shito shito.
Okay, shito shito.
Okay, so, okay.
This, the reason I say that is
because I was trying to do almost mechanically
what I would consider the same thing you did, right?
So za za to za za shiteru, right?
And this, like pitter-patter.
And in my thought, it would be like
a pitter-pattering of my heart, right?
Or my heart went a pitter-patter.
And these are a little bit more poetic in sound,
but these would be acceptable in those cases.
In like, if I'm just talking to somebody
and I was like, oh, my heart was just,
it was going all a pitter-patter.
It would work.
I don't think it would be what most people expect.
Like, it's not the go-to.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
And it definitely, like I said,
fits more in the poetic category.
But that's where maybe you get away with that.
So an interesting overlap.
Yeah, okay, okay.
I think there might be some specific examples,
like you said, that kind of you can use.
Now that you mention it,
I think I have not an onomatopoeia sense,
but I've used words in English
that is typically not used
to describe a thing that I'm describing.
Okay, all right.
And people will be like,
whoa, that's harsh, Asami.
And I was like, I don't mean to be harsh.
But like, people expect a certain set of descriptors
for a certain thing.
And when that doesn't match,
they are like taken aback a little bit.
Whereas, I mean, okay,
definitely weird, definitely poetical.
So something like that is more acceptable.
Like that leeway is more possible,
I think, in Japanese onomatopoeia context.
Because onomatopoeia in Japanese is,
by definition, kind of loosey-goosey.
Like it's not, it's trying to put sound
and feels and vibes into something
that they don't know the word for, right?
So it doesn't have to be a specific pairing.
24:00
There are certain sort of trend
in how things are described,
like kirakira or, you know,
like nico-nico, maybe, to describe the smile.
But like, there's nothing grammatically
stopping you from describing
your emotional state as kirakira or pika-pika.
You know?
Okay, yeah.
It's not like your emotion is like visibly shiny,
but you can still say that.
But you and the listener within the context
are able to create what that vision is, right?
Exactly, like the temporary, neutral understanding
of in this specifically localized context,
you can share the similar idea.
I really like how you've sort of arrived at this point.
I think what we have done is arrive at a point
that there is absolutely no way
we can unravel in that space.
No, no.
And it probably takes like another PhD.
Yes.
And I've maxed out my lifetime possibilities of PhD.
Yeah, I prefer not to do another one.
Even if I wanted to,
I don't think I can do another PhD.
It's a lot, it's a lot.
So in another life,
if one of us do become a linguist,
I think onomatopoeia is a fascinating topic
to just like explore.
Yeah.
And there's got to be a big linguist field
underneath all of this.
I mean, I've only pegged the surface
with like one or two of those top-level thesis-type things,
right?
So like this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is huge.
And I mean, the question that you just asked
doesn't stop at linguists.
It also enters into the fields of,
I mean, there's definitely still linguist overlap, right?
But you're talking about,
we are talking about how sounds,
and I don't just mean sounds of sounds
or words for sounds,
how sounds that we make, language,
carry with them so much more,
which then has to be held by the speakers
and the listeners.
And the real honest truth of it
is that it never aligns.
Like we're always talking
kind of at different angles to each other,
but the sort of way that they map
and project onto each other
allows us to either reach some higher level
of understanding every time,
or at least a functional like motion forward,
which is just surprising, right?
So.
Yeah.
Let's stop this Kalkgep podcast.
I think we've got a pretty good one out here.
Yeah.
What a stellar transition.
And if you listened this far,
thank you for dealing with our musings
on onomatopoeia done very unacademically,
unprofessionally.
Very loosely, philosophically.
In our experience.
Yeah.
Experientially explored, that's all.
So.
Yeah.
Very empirical.
We're experimentalists here.
Well, yeah.
Well, at least one of us.
27:01
You know, turning more and more
into one by the day, so.
Okay.
All right.
Bye-bye.
That's it for the show today.
Thanks for listening.
And find us on X at Eigo de Science.
That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E.
See you next time.
