The Japanese language has a large inventory of sound symbolic or mimetic words, known in linguistics as ideophones.[1][2] Such words are found in written as well as spoken Japanese.[3] Known popularly as onomatopoeia, these words do not just imitate sounds but also cover a much wider range of meanings;[1] indeed, many sound-symbolic words in Japanese are for things that make no noise originally, most clearly demonstrated by 'silently' (しーんと, shīnto), not to be confused with the religion Shintō.