Katakana Analysis

Words: ゲロゲロ>Ribbit、ビカビカ>Shine

These two Katakana words are both onomatopoetic. It is interesting to see how Japanese onomatopoeia differ across cultures. Gerogero, for example, sounds nothing like ribbit, the onomatopoeia for frog sounds in English. This difference shows that Katakana can be used for distinctly Japanese ideas, as opposed to simply for loanwords. At the same time, however, onomatopoeia are different for actually Japanese words that have a defined sound. They are more similar to approximations of sounds, and it seems that Katakana can accept a larger degree of pronunciation and sound than are typicially formed in Hiragana or Kanji. Also, it is interesting to see that a word like "shine" has a onomatopoeia because it does not in English, nor is the sound of shining similar to bikabika. This probably come as a reflection of Japanese culture either in popular times or historically. Does anyone know when these words came in to the langauge?

-ジェフリー