Acehnese Onomatopoeias: Investigating, Listing, and Interpreting Their Meanings

Abstract

Sound-imitating words, called onomatopoeia, present in most of languages in the world including Acehnese language, one of traditional languages in Indonesia, in which a great deal of onomatopoeias exist in it due to its unique constructions of onomatopoeia. Otherwise, this research aims at finding out kinds of Acehnese onomatopoeias understood and spoken among native Acehnese people by using Pidie dialect. Thus, five people in the Pidie Jaya regency were sorted out to be the subject informants by actualizing purposive and snowball technique. Moreover, a descriptive qualitative method was manifested in the research by actualizing some instruments to get the data such as structured interviewing and documentation. Hence, all of the data were interpreted in words by listing, transcribing their phonetics orderly, as well as describing both their function and meaning. A three-step analysis – data reduction, data verification, and data display-- was employed to describe the data gathered.  Result of the research reveals that Acehnese Onomatopoeias covers a wide range of expressions in sound-imitating words in which are categorized into three big classes; Phonomimes which includes auditory impressions of various imitative sounds of animals, objects, oral-related sounds, nasal-related sounds, action-related sounds; Phenomimes -- mimetic words to describe objects’ condition and human’s activities such as visual impressions, attitude-related impressions -- characteristics, laughing manners, speaking manners -- object condition impressions, body trait impressions; Psychomimes – symbolizing psychological state or inner feelings – include sensation impressions like taste, smell, temperature, inner sensation impressions such as headache sensations, skin ache sensations, body ache sensations, and emotional impressions like crying and nervousness. Still, most of Acehnese onomatopeic words are in forms of repetition and nasalization which seems to be more unique compared to other languages.