There is a little-known practice of interpreting the sounds of birds, insects, animals, and inanimate objects as intelligible, yet onomatopoeic words. Common examples include the Yellowhammer's song being rendered as, 'A little bit of bread and no cheese, please, ' and the Bushcricket saying, 'Katy did, Katy didn't'.

Despite being widespread across languages and cultures 'birdsong mnemonics' have rarely been explored and never in this depth. This ground-breaking book covers the sound imitations by bringing together 1500 examples from 62 languages. It examines what these imitations have in common and argues for the use of new terminology and classification of these examples.