ABSTRACT
Onomatopoeia is probably universal, though the possibilities differ from language to language. Languages differ in the set of speech sounds they have. English, for instance, has fricatives such as those represented by s, sh and z, which echo everyday sounds, but these speech sounds are by no means universal. In some languages words must end in a vowel. This is pretty much true of Italian, but English allows final consonants, which can be used in echoic words such as click, fizz and puff. The low aa-vowel, perhaps better described as the most open vowel, is found appropriately in the bark of dogs and in baa for the characteristic cry of sheep, and a low-back vowel is found in caw for the sound of crows. The word crow itself was an onomatopoeic crawa in Old English, but regular sound change that raised the vowel has reduced the echoic properties of the word.
