The Chinese Ideophone Database (CHIDEOD)

What is it about?

This article introduces the Chinese Ideophone Database (CHIDEOD), an open-source dataset, which collects 4948 unique onomatopoeia and ideophones ('mimetics', i.e., words like "woof-woof" or "zig-zag") of Mandarin Chinese, as well as Middle Chinese and Old Chinese. These are analyzed according to a wide range of variables, e.g., data, description, analysis and frequency. Apart from an overview of these variables, a tutorial shows how the database can be accessed in different formats (.rds, .xlsx, .csv, R package and online app interface), and how the database can be used to explore skewed tonal distribution across Mandarin ideophones. Since CHIDEOD is a data repository, potential future research applications are discussed.

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