# church bell sound - onomatopoeia



## ThomasK

How do church bells sound?
(.. if you hear any of course !)

DUTCH:  bim-bam (small) / bam-bam (or so, I think) if bigger

What interests me most is: what kind of sounds are being used ?

Some very temporary conclusions from Dutch:
 - starting with plosive (b)
 - open or close vowel based on format
 - m (liquida sound, somehow endless, and soft (fluid ...) : you can go on pronouncing it-

Looking forward...


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## Outsider

In Portugal, the conventional onomatpoeia that you'll find for example in children's books is *dlim-dlão*.


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## ThomasK

So a hard hit and a softening consonant... ? ;-)


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## jazyk

In Brazil, dim-dom (ou dim-dom). I don't think I've ever seen the word spelled anywhere and I can't find it in the dictionary.


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## Outsider

The _-ão_ at the end is a nasal diphthong, which captures the resounding, echoing sound of a bell rather well. 
The other endings, _-im_ and _-om_, are also pronounced as nasal vowels, but plain ones.


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## Nizo

Your question is interesting!  In 1857, Hans Christian Andersen wrote a short story, translated into English as "The Bell Deep."  The story begins with the sound of church bells, and these bells are heard throughout.  The standard English translation has "_*Ding-dong!*_" repeated twice.  This, in my experience, is a common way to note the sound of church bells in English.  (In fact, a doorbell makes the same sound!)  When I looked up other translations (and the original), this is what I found:

Danish (Klokkedybet):  Ding-dang!  Ding-dang!
German (Die Glockentiefe):  Ding-dang!  Ding-dang!
Esperanto (Sonorila Profundo):  Ting-tang!  Ting-tang!
Italian (Il Gorgo della Campana):  Din don!  Din don!


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## ThomasK

This is also interesting to me. One could hear *'ding-dong'* in Dutch too, I suppose, but then indeed those bells would be door-bells rather - or the ones we have in our head and which chime when we see the light ;-) 

Just funny that our *Dutch bells* seems to use their lips (bilabial) and the others their upper teeth and lower lip (????) ;-) Or do we *associate *their sound with something b'ish and you with something d/t-ish ??? 

Moderator Note: Off-topic comment snipped.


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## Angel.Aura

Nizo said:


> Italian :  Din don!  Din don!


Or *Don.. Don...* if bigger.


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## Zsanna

In Hungarian it would be *bim-bam *just as in Dutch. 

* Off topic part snipped.*


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## Blue Butterflies

Church bells presumably go "ding-dong" in Romanian (or that's how I remember it).

Smaller bells go "cling!"


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## raptor

I've heard *clang* (for medium notes, usually), and *bong *(for deeper notes). And *ding-dong *is used for medium sounds (as well as doorbells ). Also: *tin*, *tim*, and *tam* for higher notes, though these are not as common.

It makes sense to me that nasals are used at the end, as they can be drawn out to match the sound of the bell, as can the preceding vowel sounds.


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## OldAvatar

Blue Butterflies said:


> Church bells presumably go "ding-dong" in Romanian (or that's how I remember it).



Or, sometimes, bing-bang!


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## ThomasK

Just strangely interesting: why do we believe we hear a b sometimes and a d the other time or even kl, or why do we prefer a voiced or voiceless variant respectively ?  Just convention or based on some observation, some kind of logic ? 

[If I were to say that bells make a cling-clang sound in Dutch, people would either hink I am fairly original or maybe that I am not a native speaker or a little insane, or a combination of all three ;-) Ding-dong would cause no suspicion on the other hand...]


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## Christo Tamarin

In Greek, the word *καμπάνα* means a church bell. Thus, its sound is probably *kan-ban *in Greek.

In Bulgarian, the same Greek word is loaned to mean a church bell. Its sound can be *kan-ban *again or *bim-bam* or *bim-bam-boom*.


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## Zsanna

In Hungarian there other various words as well but as they have been wiped out as "off topic" I don't wish to repeat them. 

Jan, according to one line of linguistics (I adhere), there is no meaning expressed by sounds.


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## ThomasK

Can I conclude from that you are a structuralist ? I understand that point of view, but I believe in some kind of psychosomatics as well, but not as a 1-1-relation. 

In this connection that would mean that there must be some kind of link between an onomatopeia and what is linked to. The ending of the bell sounds for example clearly seems to refer to the ringing (the echoing). I think we could agree on that, even if you are a structuralist (or ...) ! ;-) But I would now like to find some kind of logic with regard to the first consonant: where does the variation come from ? 

This could also be pursued at the 'Onomatopeia: origins of ...?' thread...


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## Nanon

Ding-dong and sometimes ding-ding-dong in French _but_ the second ding is pronounced differently, with a nasal vowel [~ɛ] that I can't write, sorry.
So, the French particularisms are the nasal vowels (that's for Outsider ) and sometimes the ternary beat.


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## Outsider

Nanon said:


> [...] _but_ the second ding is pronounced differently, with a nasal vowel [~ɛ] that I can't write, sorry.


"Ding-_din_-dong", alors ?


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## ThomasK

Why do French clocks/ bells chime three times then ??? 

Or yes, maybe we could say something similar in Dutch but with three different sounds (bim-bam-bom, repeated time and again, I think)...


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## Nanon

Outsider said:


> "Ding-_din_-dong", alors ?


Din ou ding, prononcé dans ce cas comme "dingue".  Mais "din" manque de résonance à la fin, alors c'est plutôt "ding".



ThomasK said:


> Why do French clocks/ bells chime three times then ???
> 
> Or yes, maybe we could say something similar in Dutch but with three different sounds (bim-bam-bom, repeated time and again, I think)...


 
I don't know... I just mentioned something that exists (when you say it you can sing three notes).
Obviously bells don't necessarily chime three times... I live near a church with only two bells, so "ding-dong" is repeated several times.


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## ThomasK

You might be right: it might be due to the number of bells indeed !


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## Saluton

The word in Russian is the same as in Italian: дин-дон (din-don) or дон-дон (don-don), or дин-дин-дон (din-din-don). Perhaps we would use *ng* instead of *n* if Russian or Italian had the sound for *ng*.


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## No_C_Nada

In Spanish, it it's the big bell from the church belfry, it's "talán, talán", if it's a small bell, a hand bell inside the church, it's "tilín, tilín".


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## sokol

Nizo said:


> German (Die Glockentiefe):  Ding-dang!  Ding-dang!



I don't doubt that you've quoted correctly _(didn't look it up, I'll choose to be lazy ...), _but in this case the sound of the bells might have been changed a little for the sake of rhyme probably; usually a church bell sounds in German:

- Ding-Dong
- Bim-Bam (also Bam-Bam as in Dutch would be possible, and I too think that Bam-Bam would be more appropriate for a bigger bell with deeper sound)

There may be variations chosen for the sake of rhyme, or probably the number of bells involved, like Ding-Dang-Dong or Bim-Bam-Bum.


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## apmoy70

Christo Tamarin said:


> In Greek, the word *καμπάνα* means a church bell. Thus, its sound is probably *kan-ban *in Greek.
> 
> ...


The MoGr name for the church bell *«καμπάνα»* [kamˈba.na] (fem.), is a Byzantine Greek noun *«καμπάνα» kampána* (fem.) after _Campania, Italy_, the region where according to Isidorus of Campania, _"regione Italiæ nomen accepit, ubi primum usus cius repertus est"_; it arrived in ByzGr via Late Latin campana, hence a mediaeval loanword.
The sound it produces is the onomatopeia *«ντιν νταν»* [din dan]


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## Ballenero

No_C_Nada said:


> In Spanish, it it's the big bell from the church belfry, it's "talán, talán", if it's a small bell, a hand bell inside the church, it's "tilín, tilín".



I agree.

Church bells: "talán, talán"
Little bell: "tilín, tilín"
Cow bell: "tolón, tolón"


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