I Like the Sound of How You Look at Me

We are all creatures of habit, but there are some things we never seem to get used to. Never mind the unpleasant stuff—we already dedicate enough time mulling over those. I want to think about the good things that keep surprising us. The things that never bore you, that always make you smile, no matter how many times you encounter them. These are little treasures to be sought out and cherished. Why is no one talking about them?

Here's one of mine: Japan. In 20 years of learning about this culture and 14 years of living here, the sense of marvel has never really washed away for me. I know this place quite well, I have experienced it in a thousand different ways, and I have no plans of leaving it—yet I still feel like I'm on a grand voyage, a Marco Polo on an extended stay in a strange and wonderful land that most of my compatriots have never even dreamed of. A tad delusional, you say? Well, I love this feeling.

But something doesn't have to be epochal and marvelous to become an evergreen delight in your life. Sometimes it's the small details that can make your day over and over again. I could talk about food, or the way the sun sets in the mountains, or the way the wind sounds when it passes through the trees, but you already know me for the geek I am: I want to talk about Japanese sound symbolism.

The other day my Japanese wife recounted to me a conversation she had with a colleague that morning. They were talking about back pain. I translate:

"Lately it's been killing me," said my wife.

"Don't tell me. I have a history too," said her colleague.

"Oh, you have back issues too?"

"On and off. What kind of pain do you have, though?"

"It's an intense zuki-zuki down here in the lower back."

"Then it's a bit different. In my case it was usually piri-piri."

"Yeah, mine isn't piri-piri at all, it's definitely zuki-zuki pain."

"Well, take care of yourself. Get well."

Then, apparently, they went on with their jobs as usual.

When I heard this, I was awe-struck. Although those two words, zuki-zuki and piri-piri, roughly mean "tingling/twitching" and "throbbing/smarting," respectively, they have a feel to them that can't be translated from Japanese. They are what's technically called gitaigo, basically "faux onomatopoeia," in the sense that they imitate the sounds of things that make no sound.

That means that they're not verbs (like "throbbing") nor multi-purpose adjectives (like "acute"), but unique sounds—funny and rather cute sounds—used only for those situations. In most cases, the etymology of these words is unknown, and even where an origin is hypothesized (piri piri is a type of pepper), almost no Japanese speaker is aware of them. These words aren't self-explanatory, and I've never heard anyone properly explain them. You just... learn what they mean through exposure.

Despite having spent a long time immersed 24/7 in the language, the precise nuance of many gitaigo still eludes me to this day. The fact that my wife and her colleague could casually exchange those sounds and know precisely what kind of pain the other meant is low-key amazing.

There are many, many gitaigo in common use in Japan. If someone stares at you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, they're looking at you jiro-jiro; if you're being lazy with your homework, your parents might tell you to stop doing guzu-guzu and get to work; if you take your time to do something properly, you're doing it jikkuri (not all gitaigo are sound duplications); and so on and so forth. Every now and then my wife casually drops a new one that I've never heard before and is shocked when I admit not having the faintest idea what she's talking about. For my part, I love it when it happens.

It's difficult to pin down exactly what entices me about this breed of Japanese words. One aspect of it is surely linked with how childish this would sound in another language. In English, if an adult tells you, with a straight face, that you should be careful because the path is swoosh-swoosh with mud, you'd wonder why they didn't use a "proper" word for it, like slippery. If, instead of saying shaking out of fear, they say twitch-twitch, you will, at a minimum, think they're being theatrical. This kind of "baby talk" is normalized—even expected—for Japanese adults, and I find it cute.

But, beyond that, I like the modesty of it all, for lack of a better term. Instead of reaching for ten-dollar words, words with a pedigree going back to Ancient Greek or Germanic kingdoms, or even whole explanatory sentences, the Japanese are content with simply assigning a unique sound to a fuzzy and intangible concept and rolling with it, no fuss. Gitaigo are a reminder of what language is at its core: arbitrary sounds slapped on shared mental constructs.

Given that there is a seemingly endless supply of them, it's the perfect kind of bite-sized pleasure that I will, luckily, never tire of. They always make me go, you know, fuzz-fuzz inside. ●