51吃瓜

Paging Dr. Doolittle

All animals speak the same language, whether they鈥檙e in Angola, Alabama, or Argentina, right?听 Well, according to Psychology Today, “there is no universally accepted sound that humans use to represent dog barks.” So, how听did we come up with the words to describe a dog’s sound? Or other animal sounds for that matter?

Well, speech patterns, tonalities in both vocabulary and sound, and the usage of听onomatopoeia听seem to be key factors. And, this doesn’t just apply to the English language. There are words for animal sounds in every language across the globe … 听and it sounds like everyone seemed to interpret those sounds in unique ways. Time for some globetrotting.

WATCH: Common 51吃瓜s That Originated From The Animal Kingdom

Our faithful companions

Let鈥檚 explore the language of dogs a bit more. Can you see how people who speak other languages came up with these dog words? In addition to English’s听woof, bow-wow,听and听bark,听the Dutch use听blaf听blaf,听Iceland uses听voff;听we have bau from Italy (not a stretch!), ham in Romanian, guau听in Spanish, and meong or mung in Korean.听Meong? To an English-speaker鈥檚 ears, it sounds like a natural segue into the feline world, which is next.

Felines from France to Finland

While a dog鈥檚 bark is meong in Korean, their cat鈥檚 meow is yaong. In French, a cat might coyly utter a miaou, and in Finnish it鈥檚 both miau and kurnau. A Hungarian cat might miaaau, and in China it鈥檚 mao.

A quick survey shows a large number of non-English cat sounds do start with the letter m.听Here are a few that don鈥檛 (but they all coincidently start with n):听In Greek, it鈥檚 naiou, in Japanese it鈥檚 nyan, and in Estonian, it鈥檚 nau. Either way (m听or听n), there seems to be much more agreement across the globe about what a cat sounds like.

The international donkey

In English, it was long ago decided that a donkey brays (from the Old French word brait, meaning “cry”), and the onomatopoeic word for this cry is, hee-haw. Who are we to argue?

To ears in the United Kingdom, it鈥檚 more like eeehoou (or perhaps, 别别别测辞谤别鈥�remember Winnie the Pooh? it’s all making more sense!) and to those in Italy, it鈥檚 ioh ioh. Germans express it as iaah iaah and in French it鈥檚 hihan. Give a good nasally blow in two syllables, and truthfully, almost anything could work.

Hissing and buzzing creatures

It may not surprise you to learn that the sounds of snakes and bees are expressed pretty universally around the globe. The hiss of a snake is almost always expressed as sssss, while our friend the bee is represented by a combination of Bs and Zs in many languages (the Dutch even include the letter U, for buzz, as we do).

In Greek, it鈥檚 zoum and in Russian it鈥檚 zh-zh-zh, while the Japanese go for boon boon. Wait, what?

Don't croak

When we hear a frog doing its thing, it’s represented as something like ribbit. In Dutch, German, Greek, and Danish, you鈥檒l hear it represented with more of a duck sound: spelled, variously, as kwak, quaak, and kvaek. Closer to the word croak, the French use croa croa and the Spanish, croac.

Our small-winged friends

In English, words like chirp, cheep, and tweet express the way we hear a variety of small birds. Russian speakers hear fiyt-fiyt, Turkish speakers jiyk jiyk, while both Swedes and Danes hear pip pip. In Hebrew, a bird goes tziff tziff, and in French, it鈥檚 cui cui. Chip chip in Italian may come closest to the English representation, though.

How does the cock crow?

In Hindi, it crows kukdooku, in Spanish kikiriki, and Korean ko-ki-oh. In Syrian, we get cooo-coo-cooo and in Japanese kok-e-kok-ko. The Urdu language expresses their rooster sound as kuklooku. So, what are we English-speakers doing with a doodle in the middle of ours? Beats us.

If it quacks like a duck

In German, Hebrew, and Urdu, you鈥檒l hear the familiar听quack. But in Hungarian, we get 丑谩辫, in Danish a bit of hip-hop flavor with rap, and in French, coin coin. The Greeks hear the letter p somehow, and use pa-pa-pa for their own duck-speak.

Do turkeys really gobble?

The gobble gobble of English-speaking turkeys seems a little odd when you look at other representations. Let鈥檚 start with Turkey (because they would seem like the defining source in turkey-speak), where it鈥檚 glu glu. In Spain, you鈥檒l hear clou clou, and in Greece, glou glou. In Mexico, it鈥檚 goro goro goro.

So …听gobble gobble? We might be the ones to be questioned here.