Arf. Meow. Cock-a-doodle-doo!
We all know that is exactly what the dog says, what the cat says and what the rooster crows.* It’s obvious.
It’s basic onomatopoeia (A word that is spelled the same way it sounds. For instance, boom or bing or fwoosh or, say, meow.), yeah? The animal makes a sound and that sound is as clear as a bell.
Listen to a dog bark (there’s onomatopoeia for you) and you’ll hear the arf arf arf. It’s just basic. Something that is the same no matter where you go in the world.
Except that it’s not.
Different cultures and different languages, it turns out, have different words for the same sounds animals make.
Where we hear dogs go “arf arf,” the Dutch hear them say, “waf waf.” Yes, really.
Being a wordnerd, I’m always looking for stuff like this. I always love this kind of stuff and, since I’m the one behind the keyboard, you get to hear about it as well.**
I was at the website of Derek Abbot, a dude from Australia, and he has this tremendous chart listing different animal sounds, what word is used to describe their sound in Australian English and the word for that sound in different languages.
Here’s how different languages write down a small dog’s arf arf:
Finnish — hau hau
French – ouah ouah (in a high voice)
German – wau wau (in a high voice)
Turkish – hev hev
A big dog’s bark also has some different interpretations:
Danish – vov-vov (in a low voice)
Russian – gav-gav
Spanish — guf guf
In English, pigs oink. In Hungarian, pigs röf-röf (pron: reuf-reuf).
There’s much, much more at Derek’s website. I seriously urge you dudes go head over there and browse a bit. You’ll definitely leave with a much better appreciation of the words you use every day.
Footnotes & Errata
* If anyone says one word — one word! — about the fox saying something, I will hunt you down and do something appalling to the thing you love most in this world. Do not assume this is a joke.
** Provided you’re unable to actually click the mouse and go to another site. I’m going to assume you’re here for more than that reason. Of course, I like to kid myself so I might be doing that here.
