I have always had a fondness for things considered marginal in linguistics. The tide may be turning for at least some marginalia: work on ideophones is clearly on the rise, and initiatives such as Martina Wiltschko’s Eh lab at UBC and a new nonlexical vocalizations project at Linköping University show there is significant interest in this area. Part I from my notes on a workshop on ‘Ideophones and non-lexical vocalizations’.