Drawing snoring sounds in the air
In Japanese, “snoring” is ibiki. And the act of snoring is ibiki wo kaku. There is no other way to refer to the act of snoring. And this kaku is never written in kanji—there is no kanji for it. It’s found in Japanese texts hundreds of years old. Where did it come from and why is it used this way?
When we think of kaku, the first thing that pops to mind of course is 書く, “to write”. And then there’s 掻く, which means “to scratch”. Could these two be related to each other, or to the snoring usage somehow?
Most native speakers would tell you that 書く “to write” and 掻く “to scratch” are two completely different words. They must be—after all, they use different kanji! And they have two different dictionary entries! But let’s remember—Japanese were using the word kaku long before they had Sino-Japanese characters to write it with. And we know that many Yamato-go words had an extremely broad semantic spectrum. So it’s indeed possible, or even likely, that kaku was the same word, merely applied to different situations—polysemic, in other words. But what do writing and scratching have in common?
Of course: thousands of years ago, writing involved scratching characters into shells and bones, as in the oracle bone scripts.
The question remains, though: what is it about snoring that would lead it be characterized as anything even vaguely related to writing, or scratching, and thus be referred to as ibiki wo kaku in Japanese?
The most likely theory is that kaku originally meant to leave one’s mark on the outside world. For instance, we can see 水をかく (mizu wo kaku), usually written with the character 掻く, but you can’t “scratch” water—this means more to “paddle”, such as with your hand or an oar. In other words, you are leaving your mark on the water, drawing or scratching furrows in it.
So there we have it: ibiki wo kaku refers to scratching or drawing in the air with the sound of your snoring. Leaving your mark on the soundscape. Expressing your internal state—in this case, the anatomical structure of your mouth and sinuses—to the outside world.
In addition to auditory expressions, kaku can also refer to expressing an emotion or internal feeling in such a way that it is visible externally—a facial expression. For instance, we have haji wo kaku, meaning to express embarassment. If you’re very embarrassed that would be 大恥/oohaji, or you could be living in disgrace (生き恥/iki-haji), or experience public ridicule (赤恥/aka-haji).
Then we have beso wo kaku, referring to a child having a teary outburst. This might be one of those words you don’t learn until you’re in your married-with-kids phase in Japan. (The word beso is said to have come from へ, the shape of the unhappy tot’s upturned mouth.)
Another usages of kaku in this sense is ほえ面をかく/hoe-zura wo kaku, which refers to making a “howling face”.
And how could we forget 汗をかく/ase wo kaku, to break out in a sweat. Or 冷や汗をかく/hiya-ase wo kaku, a cold sweat. To belabor the point, this is about expressing an internal state—in this case a temperature imbalance—in an externally visible way, as drops of sweat running down your face.
Finally, there's 欲をかく/yoku wo kaku—to seethe with envy.
And a final note on ibiki. You hardly ever see the kanji for this, but just in case you were wondering it’s 鼾. Now look real close. The left half looks like the 鼻, the character for hana/“nose” that every Japanese school kid learns in third grade, but the two vertical lines at the lower left do not poke through the horizontal line. That is because 鼻 was simplified, thanks to it being a Joyo Kanji, but non-Joyo Kanji, even when they included the same elements, were not.
We will not go into the various theories for the origin of the word ibiki, other than to mention briefly that some scholars believe the i was an old reading for 寝 (ne/sleep), while others think it might be a shortened version of 息 (iki/“breath”); the biki part might be related to 響き (hibiki/“resound”).
In case you were wondering about the character 掻く, it depicts a hand (the radical on the left) scratching a bite left by a flea (the part on the right, which also handily provides the phonetic value). Clever.