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Japanese uses “nyaa” for meow. I’m sure there are other counterexamples.
by airza 3y ago
Japanese uses “nyaa” for meow. I’m sure there are other counterexamples.
- lampington 3y agoThanks! TIL that nyancat is something like "meowcat"
- kortex 3y agoI would actually contend that "meow" and "nya" are pseudo-cognates, they are onomatopoeia of the same sound. M and N are both nasals, and iˈaʊ̯ and ia are close in vowel space.
- resonious 3y agoCan also add that dogs say "wan", which I found surprising. Seems even the onomatopoeia can differ quite a bit!
- Petrosz007 3y agoIn hungarian when “[the cat is] meowing” we say “[a macska] nyávog”, which means to make sounds similar to ‘nyí’ [1]. Now that I think about it, it’s weird, because the we use “miáú” for the actual sound, but we don’t use the verb “miákol”, which apparently exists. [1]: https://uesz.nytud.hu/index.html?uuid=a95e306a-7590-1014-8655-f6dd518faf98 https://uesz.nytud.hu/index.html?uuid=a95e306a-7590-1014-865...