About Ablauts
About Ablauts
The rule you may not know but follow
Welcome to “Off the Clock,” the fortnightly Saturday edition of Timeless & Timely that’s a fun look at language and words.
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The English language is strange. There are rules we follow, even if we don’t know what they are —even if we don’t know that they exist.
Some customs in the language just feel right; if the unrecognized rule is violated, it just sounds odd.
Part of why I write the Off the Clock newsletter is because in my research, I enjoy learning about the intricacies and eccentricities of our language.
And of course, I enjoy sharing these with you. Assuming that this is something you like as well.
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All About Ablauts
Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about ablauts. Specifically about ablaut reduplication. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
According to Merriam-Webster, ablaut is “a systematic variation of vowels in the same root or affix or in related roots or affixes especially in the Indo-European languages that is usually paralleled by differences in use or meaning (as in sing, sang, sung, song).”
And there’s a rule about them that you follow, whether you know it or not.
When we use two ablauts in a phrase it is called ablaut reduplication. Phrases like chit chat, flip flop, ping pong, flim-flam, or tic tac toe.
You may not have considered it before, but the rule about ablaut reduplication merciless and unforgiving:
If there are three words, the order of the ablauts must be I, A, O. If there are two words, the first is I and the second is either A or O.
Notice you wouldn’t have a chat chit with someone or wear a pair of flop flips. Nor would you challenge a friend to play pong ping or tac toe tic. And you certainly wouldn’t try to pull a flam-flim on them.
All of those just sound wrong, don’t they?
Common ablaut reduplications:
Zig zag
Crisscross
Jingle jangle
Dilly dally
Hip hop
Knickknack
Riffraff
Some even show up as brand names:
Ding Dongs
TikTok
Fiddle Faddle
King Kong
Tic Tac
MixMax
KitKat
Are there any you’d add? Don’t go all wishy washy on me.
There’s so much to learn,
<<Notice you wouldn’t have a chat chit with someone or wear a pair of flop flips. Nor would you challenge a friend to play pong ping or tac toe tic. And you certainly wouldn’t try to pull a flam-flim on them.
All of those just sound wrong, don’t they?>>
Yes, they do. But I don’t think the sound is why they aten’t right. I think it’s that they FEEL wrong in the mouth—which is why they ended up in that particular order in the first place.
I believe the determining factor here is the relentless efficiency language always seeks.
In terms of the musculature involved in the meaningful coordination of lips, teeth, tongue, throat, etc., flim-flam evolved to -im fl- and -im am because it’s easier to move in those directions than the reverse.
This concept is a little easier to FEEL if you consider how awkward Garfunkel and Simon sounds when you compare moving from -ul to -si versus the much smaller, quicker, and easier move from -un to -an.
For me, it’s usially tongue-travel that tips me off.
I love word play. I use a lot of it when I write for kids. Phoneme order is also a huge component in the difference between poetry and prose and figurative and literal language—something I learned from Poet Lauriate Robert Pinsky.
And, I belueve, this same idea also dictates the sound and feel of given names and surnames.
Given names are given to individuals whereas surnamed are taken from the group to which one belongs: Johnson, Carpenter, Weaver, Wright, etc.
I think the same idea applies to nicknames, monikers, and the inevitable shortening-to—a-single-syllable of the more casual versions of our names thattend to be prefered by our familiars and which sound so much more casual and approachable —> “Steve” instead of “Steven.”
And “Scott Monty”?
Thank your parents for the pair of short /o/ sounds there. And for staying within what is the Scottish tradition in both names, I think: “Man of Scotland” + “Mountain”?
Love these language posts. Keep ‘em comin’.
—Steve