Linguist Forum
General Linguistics => Linguist's Lounge => Topic started by: Guijarro on February 11, 2014, 02:19:06 AM
-
I have recently received a mail from a Moroccan friend where his rendering of laughter was like this: "Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". This is normal, since Arabs have long forsaken vowels in their writings. But, according to my own way to represent laughter, I think they lose accuracy in expressing their laughs. For instance, in my neck of the woods, each vowel represents a different kind of guffaw:
Most people write the initial consonant J, instead of H, but this is inmaterial for the sound H when it is indeed written, represents the same sound as the Spanish J, a strong aspirated fricative (X).
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Represents a frank and friendly guffaw
He he he he he
Indicates some malevolence in the laughter
Hi hi hi hi hi
Sounds naughty and teasing
Ho ho ho ho ho ho
Is the laughter associated with good old Santa Claus. A good old person's guffaw
Hu hu hu hu hu hu
Is seldom used; to me it sounds as a frightened nervous laugh
So, our laughing texts are richer than the Arab ones. However, they must exercise their inferencing abilities a lot more to deduce the kind of laugh they intend from the context.
How about your laughing written signals?
-
There's also "ahahah" for languages that don't use H as [h].
--
Via chat, my inventory is:
haha[...]: normal laughter
hehe[...]: mild amusement, a punchline
heh: a limited chuckle, not too enthusiastic, or mixed feelings
-
Interesting!
-
I think in Korean there's a tendency to write kikikikiki! Or at least I had a friend that did... I always thought that was quite different :)