echoism
The practice of creating words or language by imitating sounds from the environment.
Noun
- The practice of creating words or language by imitating sounds from the environment.
- One possibility is that language developed from echoism, i.e. from attempts of early humans to imitate natural sounds and react vocally to emotions. - 1999, Marcel Danesi, Paul Perron, Analyzing Cultures: An...
- That is the simple account of the motivation for the phenomenon of sound symbolism or echoism. - 2011, Karl Bühler, Theory of Language: The Representational Function of Language:
Origin
From echo + -ism.