Definition & Bedeutung von "ideophone"

What is an "ideophone"?

An ideophone is a word that vividly represents a sensory experience, such as a sound, movement, or feeling, through its structure and sound. These words often imitate or evoke the sensation they describe, like the sound of an action or the appearance of something. For example, in some languages, ideophones are used to mimic sounds like "buzz" for the noise a bee makes or to describe movements like "splash" for the sound of water. Ideophones are common in many African, Asian, and Indigenous languages, where they add expressive depth to spoken language by closely linking sound and meaning.