Of sound symbolism and the word "zigzag"

[Particles the Greek]

My spies tell me that "zigzag" comes from the German Zickzack, "possibly a reduplication of Zacke". What other vowel alternations exist (in any language) which express back-and-forthness like this? There's Welsh igamogam, but that's due to the prepositions i and o more than to actual sound symbolism.

[finlay]

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/the-nit ... plication/ section ablaut reduplication. You'll find it's not an especially good article but it's a little bit more descriptive than wikipedia. Basically I think you'll be able to find examples of this elsewhere in English such as criss cross, but you may not find the same thing in other languages.

[Salmoneus]

Flip-flop.

[Terra]

tick-tock

[Bristel]

bing-bong

[TaylorS]

Ding-Dong!

[CatDoom]

Sing-song, though that one's a little bit odd since it consists of two actual English words.

Also, flimflam, which as far as I know doesn't describe a sound at all.

[zompist]

A few from French:

pin pon - sound of an ambulance
hihan - donkey braying
plic ploc - dripping water
et patati et patata - and so on, blablabla
a bric et a brac (obsolete) - at random

[Yagia]

Dutch as far as I can think of, prefers an i - a opposition:
(like 'zigzag', which is not only German but also Dutch)
tiktak (like a clockwork)
bimbam (like churchbells 'ding dong')
kriskras (= criss-cross)
flikflak (some gymnstic/acrobatic exercise)

Me thinks what we have here is a variety of the sound symbolism ('iconism'?) in which high/front vowels express sharp, acute sounds or movements, and low/back vowels express the dull, blunt, slow, etc.
Is this a language universal btw?

[Kereb]

djobi djoba

[Salmoneus]

Most of these words are not actually symbolising changes of direction, though. A bunch of them are just the human tendency to automatically hear two percussive noises of the same pitch and volume, close enough together in time, as having alternative high-low pitch and volume. [In most clocks there is no auditory difference between the tick and the tock, and you can turn it into tick-tock-tock or tick-tock-tock-tock (i.e. set the time signature) in your head; likewise pitter-patter], while others are just mimicking sounds that actually do have changes in pitch (sing-song, ding-dong, hee-haw, however you spell a siren, etc). Others are just reduplications with vowel alternation with no apparent direct symbolic value.

Zigzag, flipflop, and crisscross, however, are all genuine examples of reduplication-with-vowel-alternation symbolising a change in direction. I think maybe 'shillyshally' might also count, if we assume the original meaning is "tend first one way and then another".

It's interesting that all four examples have a front closed vowel followed by a vowel that is backer and more open. It's tempting to wonder whether this is in some way an instinctive imitation of doppler effect, but would doppler effects have been noticeable in the pre-industrial era? I guess they would have been (shouting people, cries of animals, etc) but not often enough for it to have impact the vocabulary like this. So is this just something Germanic does, or is it a genuine cross-cultural tendency? If so, why? [The 'fake pitch alternation' thing does genuinely tend to produce tick-tock rather than tock-tick, iirc, so maybe other reduplications-with-vowel-alternation are analogised from this pattern?]

[----]

Zigzag, flipflop, and crisscross, however, are all genuine examples of reduplication-with-vowel-alternation symbolising a change in direction. I think maybe 'shillyshally' might also count, if we assume the original meaning is "tend first one way and then another".

Could 'wishy-washy' be an example of this same thing?

[VerbalDescription]

To me "dilly-dally" evokes a sort of aimless back-and-forth movement in line with its meaning of "wasting time".

[clawgrip]

Don't forget there's also consonant alteration, e.g. fuddy-duddy, super-duper, ragtag, hocus-pocus, handy-dandy, etc.

As for the cross-cultural thing, I'll just point out that Japanese uses lots of reduplication, but there is rarely any alteration between the two words beyond the standard voicing that occurs for any sort of compound. There are only a few for consonants, e.g. nanda-kanda "something or other, this or that" I can think of one CV alteration: mecha-kucha "insanely, crazily, absurdly"

[Richard W]

Front-back vowel alternation has been claimed as a universal, but Thai generally goes for back-front alternation, such as ŋɔ̂nŋɛ̂n 'shaky, unstable'.

[Lambuzhao]

Yik yak - I have heard this among PA. German L1/English L2 speakers.

Don't even get me started on yakkity-yak, which is obviously a relictual /t/-infix perfect from Osco-Umbrian.

If there's a back and forth here, it's of the banter of conversation.

Similarly, then chit-chat.

I ween that these are forms where the reduplication belies an Iterative, Frequentative, or possibly, Pluractional.

There are a handful of Ancient Greek verbs that have a reduplicated present form:

βιβρώσκω “I consume” /bi.bro:.sko:/
δίδωμι “I give” /di/do:.mi/
κίχανω “I reach; I meet with” /ki.kha.no:/
ἵστημι “I make to stand” /hi.stɛ:.mi/ Orig. */si.stɛ:.mi/
πίμπλημι “I fill” /pim.plɛ:.mi/
πίμπρημι “I am inflamed; I swell” /pim.prɛ:.mi/
πίπτω “I fall” /pip.to:/
τίθημι “I set” ti.thɛ:.mi/
τιτρώσκω “I wound” /ti.tro:.sko:/

This feature might have a root/roothair/rhizomatous-fungal-hypha that stretches as far back as PIE

http://www.academia.edu/1059355/The_Mor ... o-European

[Birdlang]

What about ship-shape? But I know it from being a little kid once and listening to a song with that in it.

[Tropylium]

Finnish has, interestingly enough, ees taas 'back and forth' (literally 'forward backward'), ylös alas 'up [and] down', sinne tänne 'hither [and] thither', and squinting a bit, even mennen tullen 'going [and] coming' which seem to adhere to the front-to-back, close-to-open pattern despite being regularly constructed from basic vocabulary. Sound symbolism in spatial vocabulary can be quite entrenched.

[sirdanilot]

The connection between high and low vowels and high and low pitch is a pretty well-known one, so it's logical for this to appear in omnomatopeia first. Then through semantic extension also into spacial back-and-forth motions and such.

Dutch also has 'mikmak' though I'm not so sure how to translate that word. And english mishmash of course.