Is there an onomatopoeia of mumbling in japanese?

Question

I was watching an anime, and they use repetitions of "ブツ" everytime a character is mumbling. Is this the rule for japanese or it's just something made up for a particular anime/manga?

Cross-posted on Anime.SE: Is it usual in anime/manga/japanese to use ブツ as onomatopoeia of mumbling? — Andrew T., Jun 10 '18 at 15:30
In my experience, the question to "is there an onomatopoeia of X in japanese?" is always "yes", no matter what X is. — Michael Borgwardt, Jun 11 '18 at 12:52

score 15 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 10 '18 at 13:41

15

For mumbling, there are 「ブツブツ」、「ボソボソ」、「ブツクサ」, etc. Those three are commonly used.

If you did not know, we have an onomatopoeia for "everything" including things that do not even make any actual sound.

answered Jun 10 '18 at 13:41

That's interesting, can you give me an example of an onomatopoeia for something that doesnt make a sound? – Pablo Jun 10 '18 at 14:05
11

シーン is an onomatopoeia for silence! – mamster Jun 10 '18 at 14:07
5

or ジー which is is for staring. – Igor Skochinsky Jun 10 '18 at 19:34
Chinese sometimes does the same, like 咿唔, which is ‘the sound of reading’. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 11 '18 at 11:30

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:18

Besides ブツブツ, another onomatopoeia of mumbling in Japanese is ゴニョゴニョ (reference).

Example in the wild:

ゴニョゴニョ何言ってるのか分からない

Another one:

高音のロボット🤖が何やらゴニョゴニョ言ってる（このゴニョゴニョの中身は分からない）

Beware that it can also have other meanings, though, or can have a nuance of "blablabla".

Is there an onomatopoeia of mumbling in japanese?

2 Answers2