What are these "people sounds" in other languages?

Factual Questions
1

Every once in a while, someone will point out that to non-English speakers, animals make “different” sounds than we think. For example, Ukranians think ducks go “krya krya” while we hear “quack quack”. This site gives a full list.

Instead of animal sounds, I want to know about people sounds. In other languages, what’s the equivalent of the following:
Phew!
Ugh.
Heh.
Tee-hee.
A-choo!
Grrrr.
Yay!
Aww(, man :()
Aww(, he’s so cute :))
Mmm-hmm (yes)
Uh-uh (no)
Tsk.
Pfsh.
…any others you can think of.

I know that Middle Eastern Arabs have a tongue click with slight, abrupt head tilt to mean “Mm-hmm”. The GF already mentioned the German multi-purpose “doh” for, as far as I can tell, “Ah!” or “Yay!” or “heh”.

2

Do animals in other countries really make other sounds? It is probably more about how the society puts sounds into words, thats called an onomatopoeia i believe I think if has to do with more of how convient their language is at making animal sounds that can be spelt out. In english the cow goes moo but that is really what it sounds like. But what if you don’t have the phenogram for mo you change how it is spelt and pronounced. Making it sound like something else can also have a culture effect like how and orange is orange, The fruit came before the color

3

In Swedish, a number of those are similar (for example, a-choo is typically written “atjo”, and pronounced very similarly to the English version, though it can also be written (and pronounced) “atji”), but some are different in ways I think are interesting enough to describe.

Mmm-hmm (yes): mmmm (with a falling tone on the first “mm” and a rising tone on the second “mm”)
Uh-uh (no): mh-mh
Tsk: This one is difficult to describe. It’s like a reverse t pronounced three times in rapid succesion. By “reverse”, I mean that instead of exhaling, creating a small puff of air, you inhale, causing a slightly wet noise as your tongue is pulled further into your mouth. And, also, when I say “t”, I mean a Swedish t, which is not identical to an English t*. If you do that to an English t, you get the “come here horsie” sound.
Pfsh: This one is a straight exhalation via the nose, no vocal chords or any other fancy stuff. I don’t have an onomatopoeia for it, but there is a verb and noun for it (fnysa/fnysning, presumably derived from nysa/nysning, “sneeze”).

  • Specifically, Swedish ts are dental, where English ones are alveolar.
4

I’m not sure exactly what you mean, because we’re trying to talk about sounds in text form. So I can’t tell when you’re speaking about orthographic sounds or phonic sounds. So let me start over with the animal sounds thing:

  1. Animals make the same sounds all over the world.
  2. People hear these identical sounds differently.
  3. People write these sounds down using the orthography of their language.

I know we agree on 1 and 3. Do you also agree on 2? Or are you contending that the differences arise when you go from 2 to 3?

Anyway, this isn’t about animal sounds. It’s about people sounds. I want to know what the Japanese say when they escape a close situation or what Hungarians say when they get disgusted.

5

In French:
Phew! = Ouf! there is also “Fiou!” which seems closer.
Ugh.= beurk
Heh= many possibilities, one of them is Heu.
Tee-hee.= hi hi
A-choo!= I dunno, atchoo, I guess
Ouch= Aie! (in Quebec, ay-oye is common)
Yay!-- don’t know of any, Youpee! is close but not quite it
Aww, there is Aaah, but it’s not quite the same
Mmmm= miam (as in it’s tasty)

6

How about the “raspberry”, which can’t really be represented phonetically in English, but is usually represented by something like “pbbbbt”.

7

A lot of the vocalizations in Latin are recognizable from similar sounds used for the same signification in English.

ā: ah
āh or ā: ah! alas! ha! ah me!
ăhă: I. aha! ah! haha! an exclamation. Of reproof or denial II. Of laughter
ai: interj., denoting grief, ah! alas!
ătăt or attat: also several times repeated, atatatae, attatatatae, or atatte, atattate, etc., interj., = ἀτταταί, ἀτταταταί, etc.; an exclamation of joy, pain, wonder, fright, warning, etc., I. oh! ah! alas! lo! strange! etc.
au or hau: an exclamation of pain or grief, I. Oh! ah!
băbae or păpae: odds bodkins! wonderful! strange!
buttuti: Huzzah!
ēheu: interj., an interjection of pain or grief, I. ah! alas!
ĕhŏ: used in asking, commanding, or scolding, I. ha? ho! holla! soho! A. In vehement questions, B. In impetuous commands, “eho puer,” C. In angry remonstrance or invective
ei: oh!
ēiă or hēiă: I. An expression of joy or of pleased surprise. A. In admiring an object, ah! ah ha! indeed! B. In gentle remonstrance or persuasion, ah! come! C. In strong affirmation D. With vero, ironically, expressing amused doubt of what has been said, pshaw! II. Of impatient exhortation, ho! quick! come on! come then! up then!
em or hem: an expression of surprise, in a good or bad sense; of admiration, joy, of grief, indignation, etc. (like the intensive ehem, an expression of joyful surprise), I. oho! indeed! well! well to be sure! hah! alas! alack!
em or ēn: I. lo! behold! see! see there! I. In presenting in a lively (or indignant) manner something important or unexpected II. In interrogations. A. To excite the attention of the hearer B. Manifesting the speaker’s wonder, anger, or excitement.
eu: well! well done! bravo! an exclamation of joy or approbation
euax or ēvax: interj. expressive of delight at some tidings or event; hail! joy! good!
eugĕ (eugē or eugae): an exclamation of joy, applause, admiration, etc., I. well done! good! bravo! – Esp., with an ironical signif. superadded, excellent! admirable! euge, optime
euhoe (dissyl.; also, euoe ; less correctly, ēvoe): I. a shout of joy at the festivals of Bacchus: “euhoe Bacche,”
fī: interj., I. pah! foh! an expression of disgust at a bad smell: “Fi, fi, fetet!”
fu, fue, fūfae or phū: denoting aversion
ha!: I. Ha hae or hahae, an exclamation of joy, thank heavens! hahae II. Ha ha he, or in one word, hahahe, an exclamation of laughter or derision, ha! ha! ha! Chr. Ha, ha, he!
hĕhae: he! he!
hei (also ei): an exclamation of grief or fear, I. ah! woe! freq. (joined with mihi) ah me! woe is me!
hem (also em): an expression of surprise, in a good or bad sense; of admiration, joy, of grief, indignation, etc. (like the intensive ehem, an expression of joyful surprise), I. oho! indeed! well! well to be sure! hah! alas! alack!
heu!: I. absol. or with acc., rarely with nom. or voc.; I. An exclamation of grief or pain, oh! ah! alas!
heus!: Used in calling attention, I. ho! ho there! hark! holloa!
ho!: an expression of astonishment, I. oh! ho!
hui: an exclamation of astonishment or admiration, I. hah! ho! oh!
ĭō: interj. ἰώ, expressing joy, I. ho! huzza! hurra! II. Expressing pain, oh! ah! III. Used in a sudden or vehement call, holla! look! quick!
mu: interj., = μῦ, a slight sound made with the closed lips I. to mutter, make a muttering II. A sound of lamentation
ō: interj. The commonest exclamation of joy, astonishment, desire, grief, indignation, etc.
oh: an expression for the most various emotions of the mind—for surprise, both joyful and painful; for great pleasure or sorrow; for earnest wishing, admiration, aversion, etc.
ŏhē or ōhē: ho! holloa! soho! ho there!
ŏho: an exclamation of surprise or joy
oi: an exclamation of complaint, of one weeping
oiei: a cry of lamentation
phy: pish! tush!
prō: (less correctly prōh ), an exclamation of wonder or lamentation, I. O! Ah! Alas!
prox: comic representation of a fart
st: hist! whist! hush! ssssshh!
tăt: an exlamation of surprise – what! strange!
tatae: an exclamation of surprise, I. so! the deuce!
vae: οὐαί, an exclamation of pain or dread
vah, vāh or vaha: an exclamation of astonishment, joy, anger, etc., I. ah! oh!

8

Playing online poker with people from all over the world has taught me a lot:

In Peru, it seems to be ijijiji…(ifinity)

In Montenegro it is hrrrrrrr.

9

Arabs click their tongue to mean “no”.

10

In Spanish, a lot of those simply don’t get written; for others, the situation is not a one-on-one correspondence (same as with animal sounds, for which English distinguishes several sounds for dogs and Spanish reduces them all to “guau”, pronounced “wow!”). If you see someone in a comic book in English breathing a “phew” of relief, and someone in a similar situation in Spanish, IME the one in the Spanish book will have a little puff of air drawn coming out of his mouth, rather than a sound; if they have a sound it will be “buf”, which can also be used for other situations (but wich may be drawn bigger or smaller, for example). In a novel it wouldn’t get written, the relief would be expressed in other ways.

11

I find it odd that one language out of so many would eschew onomatopoeia, especially a romance language.

Also, I know that Teehee is represented as jejeje. I’ve seen it often enough when speaking to Spanish speaking people online. Now if only I could figure out all the odd spellings of words. You’d think an almost phonetic language wouldn’t need to respell words.

12

Are you asking how they would be written differently or how they would be pronounced?

13

At-choum

14

It doesn’t eschew onomatopoeia, what happens is that the whole way in which the action is represented is different. We don’t represent someone barfing by using barf sounds, we just say they barfed (in English that’s an onomatopoeia; in Spanish we say they “returned”, “threw the pota” pota here meaning the results of barfing and not the cephalopod, or the euphemistic “got sick” - no onomatopoeias). Spelling dialectal variations is also something Not Done, while in English it’s all over the place. We just explain things in a different way.

And teehee is much closer to jiji than jeje.

15

These are the German equivalents I know of:

Phew! - Puh!
Ugh. - Igitt resp. Pfui
Heh. - same
Tee-hee. - ?
A-choo! - Hatschi!
Grrrr. - same
Yay! - Juhu
Aww(, man ) - ?
Aww(, he’s so cute ) - ?
Mmm-hmm (yes) - It’s a vocal expression you cannot really spell
Uh-uh (no) - dito
Tsk. - ?
Pfsh. - ?

16

No, it clearly doesn’t - that’s just your cultural conditioning telling you that.

If I were to approximate more accurately what a cow sounds like, I’d write WWWWMMUUUAAAAAHH, and even then that wouldn’t come close because cows don’t use human phonemes. Each language has its own onomatopoeic approximation to the sound a cow makes, and the English “moo” is certainly only an approximation.

To the OP, in Cantonese, “wow” (that’s amazing) is said “wah”, and “uh-oh” would be “ai-ya”.

17

I was going to try and do some of the czech expressions for these, but I find I can’t recall ever seeing them written down. I guess I need to read a different class of books.

18

AFAIK, this is spelled something like “aaa” in many, many languages that use either the Roman or Cyrillic alphabets. I don’t know if it’s a universal human sound, but I don’t think it’s far off if it’s not.

19

Spanish seems to have plenty of onomatopeia. Going from Nava’s posts, however, they seemed to be used with a different frequency than they might be used in English.

Nava, do you have a read on whether there are differing uses of onomatopeia between Castillian speakers and folks in Mexico or Puerto Rico (perhaps under the influence of Anglo neighbors)? I am wondering if American newspaper comics – especially huge cultural icons like Peanuts or Garfield – would ever get translated and appear in newspapers in proximate Spanish-speaking cities such as Mexico City or San Juan.

Colibri, how about down in Panama?

20

Nope. Cows are unable to form a bilabial nasal sonorant that sounds anything like it does in English. Listen more carefully next time, and you’ll hear that the actual sound is nothing like “moo.”