What does laughter sound like? If your answer is that it goes, “Hahaha,” then you’re very likely an English speaker (oh the horror).
But why would that be the case? Doesn’t laughter sound the same across the world?
Sure, in a certain way it does. Human beings always know when another person is laughing, regardless of their cultural or linguistic background. The specific type of laughter can differ based on context, of course (joyous versus sarcastic laughter, for example), but identifying the act itself is usually easy.
Things get a little more complicated when it comes to how we represent laughter, either by talking about how it sounds or by encoding it in written communication.
A Laughter Map of The World
It turns out that it is possible to be clueless when a person from another part of the world is describing a feeling of mirth. This is less a question of what the laughter actually sounds like and more how it’s represented, especially in Internet communication. Let’s take a look at a few examples.
One of the more widely recognized alternatives to “hahaha” is the Spanish “jajaja.” The distinction between the two is a minor one because a ‘j’ in Spanish makes the same sound as an ‘h’ in English in most instances. Spanish veers from its standard laughter word with “jejeje,” used to express irony, and “jijiji” for a mischievous chortle.
In some languages, laughter is expressed using abbreviations for phrases that describe the effects of the act. For example, the French often type out “MDR,” which is short for “Mort de Rire,” a phrase that means that you’ve died laughing (not literally, of course). This is similar to the Estonian approach of typing out “IRW,” which conveys a smile using an abbreviation for the Estonian word “irvitamina.”
Certain groups use numbers to stand in for letters that communicate laughter. The number five is pronounced as “haa” in Thai, which is used to convey laughter by typing out “55555.” Certain Internet-native groups in China type laughter out as “23333,” with the number of threes appended to the two varying depending on the degree of laughter. This practice has its origins on the Chinese Internet forum Maopu, where the 233rd emoticon available in the chat list is one of a figure keeled over in laughter.
There are several examples of encoded laughter that have to do with our increasingly digital-first communication patterns. Indonesians type their laughter out as “wakaka” or “wkwkwk,” a trend that emerged because it was quicker to type out a “k” rather than an “h” in the default typing position on the keyboard. Similarly, in Japan, the string “www” conveys laughter because “W” is used as an emoticon that portrays a laughing face.
Laughter as Onomatopoeia
All of the examples that we looked at are words and terms that try to recreate the sound of a laugh in written form. That makes them onomatopoeias, which are words that try to recreate a sound in words phonetically. Think about how in English we say that a slamming door “thuds” or that a freshly opened can of soda is said “fizzes” These are utterances that have a clear connection to the way we perceive the sounds that those objects produce.
According to one theory, onomatopoeias might have something to do with the very origins of language. Known as the bow-wow theory in linguistics, it makes the case that human beings’ first began to use their vocal chords to convey meaningful terms by imitating their surroundings, like the cooing of a bird or the splashing of water.
Regardless of whether this theory adequately accounts for the origins of language, onomatopoeias are an important feature of every language around the world. Not only do they act as an accessible linguistic representation of an observable aspect of our reality (sound), they can also be employed to heighten the sensorial experience and rhythm of a written work. Consider, for example, the poem The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe, in which he vividly describes different kinds of bells using terms like “clanging” and “tinkling.” Such elucidation would be impossible without onomatopoeias.
Now that brings us to the examples that we saw earlier of how laughter is represented in different ways across the globe. In case you’re wondering why there’s such variation between different cultures, linguists don’t have a good answer for us just yet. As it turns out, researchers have studied not just laughter, but also how people write about animal sounds or snoring noises. And while the differences between groups keep emerging, the reasons remain unclear.
But what we do know is that both language and laughter are universally human phenomena. If language is what makes it possible to be human, laughter is what makes it bearable. So while we continue to dig into why we write out our giggles and chortles so differently, let’s never forget to share in laughter together, whether it’s a jajaja or a 55555.
