Sonicky Speech

Regular beijinger columnist Kaiser Kuo reflects on those "sonicky" aspects of speech that give our words meaning...

I recently listened to the audio book of Alphabet Juice, by the American writer and humorist Roy Blount, Jr. Narrated by the author in his distinct voice (at once folksy and erudite), it lends itself particularly well to audio.
The book is a loosely alphabetical ramble through English, filled with amusing etymological asides and occasional soapbox rants about various points of diction and usage. But the main thrust of the book is to debunk the notion commonly held among linguists that “the relation between a word and its meaning is arbitrary.”

Blount argues that “through centuries of knockabout breeding and intimate contact with the human body,” certain words and combinations of letters just marry sound and meaning too perfectly for that relationship to be dismissed as arbitrary. He doesn’t mean simply imitative onomatopoeia, but rather words like dingy and dim, gulp and grunt, pizzazz, rickety, slick and hundreds of other convincing examples he offers up. These words Blount describes, with his own neologism, as “sonicky.”

While listening to Alphabet Juice, I realized – and how could I not? – that Mandarin Chinese is full of these sonicky words, too. (Written Chinese, with its ideographic origins and all, is too full of matches between character and meaning to warrant comment.) I’m sure it’s true of most languages: A kind of natural selection process compels us to keep the sounds and words that strike us (who knows whether biologically or merely culturally) as congruent, while tossing the ones that just don’t fit. It’s a pity, though, that Roy Blount, Jr. doesn’t speak Mandarin (to the best of my knowledge), because he’d have a field day with it.

The tonal nature of Mandarin, of course, adds a whole dimension that helps “somehow sensuously evoke the quality of the word,” as Blount put it. The Putonghua equivalent of the f-bomb, cào 操, which derives happily from cāo 操 (“to plow”), is not only blessed with that contemptuous initial “ts” sound that almost forces the upper lip into a sneer, but also – and I’m sure not coincidentally – possesses that exclamatory, falling fourth tone that gives it so much more punch.

Chuī 吹, for “blow,” has that terrific breathy quality that just wouldn’t work with another tone. The initial consonant softens it into a gentle breeze, as opposed to guāfēng 刮风 for those more savage, blustery winds that bring dust storms to Beijing each spring. The verbal “gua” element, almost certainly imitative in origin, gives it coarseness, and in the paired first tones of the word-phrase, you can hear the howl. It’s a word that’s meant to be shouted and heard over that howl.

Shuǎng 爽 is one of my favorite words in any language. It enjoys perfect sonic consonance with its numerous meanings clear, fresh, bright, open. I use it most for that ice-water-on-a-hot-day feeling, a monosyllabic exclamation. Its third tone demands that the speaker dig right down; it conveys a depth of satisfaction no word I can think of in English quite captures.

Listen to a word like róuruǎn 柔软, meaning “soft.” Everything about that word says “soft” to me. Say it aloud and notice what’s happening in your mouth, from the alliteration in the “r” sounds, the long “o” in róu and that oozy diphthong in ruǎn, and that effortless second-tone/third-tone combo. For me, the price difference between a ruǎnwò 软卧 ticket for a sleeper train cabin and one for a yìngzuò 硬座, or hard seat, is discernible in the sound of the words.

I leave you with a perennial favorite for students of Mandarin, and an expression I still delight in: feìhuà 废话. Literally meaning “wasted words,” it can be employed in its more mild sense when, for instance, another party in conversation says something redundant or engages in mere sophistry. But it’s much more fun when it’s exclaimed loudly and scornfully, where the full, furious force of its fricative “f” and falling fourth-tones can be unleashed. Used this way in heated conversation, it stands in for “Bullshit!” or “Balderdash!” Deploy it correctly and with sufficient disdain and it’s a leg up in just about any argument. It may get you slapped or punched in the nose, but letting fly a good “Feìhuà!” is about the most satisfying feeling I know of in Mandarin.

Shuǎng!