In his famous Course in General Linguistics, Saussure uses a similar example to demonstrate that onomatopoeia are just as arbitrary as all other signs (words).
Because one could argue that onomatopoeia is where signs seem less arbitrary. After all, those words try to reproduce a seeming objective reality, namely an existing sound. In this case, owls' hoots. But this image shows that's not the case, just like Saussure argued.
I've never heard of Saussure before, so I found a quick summary of what you said and it seems to say we simplify a lot of things into something good enough so we don't need to reinvent our languages to have everything make perfect sense.
I enjoy things that make different cultures unique, and this becomes a more interesting thread with every post so far. I'm learning so many things from you all on a little owl post. But owls have represented wisdom for many people for a long time, so I guess it is fitting!
In Polish 'sowa' is owl, and it goes 'hu-hu', but if you hear an owl and want to mention it to somebody, you tend to say 'sowa huczy' (in the appropriate tense obv) which is 'the owl is hu-ing'.