When you think of dogs and cats do you think of the sounds they make? And have you ever wondered what a dog or cat sounds like somewhere else?
When we say how they sound, we don’t mean that their bark necessarily sounds different, a bark is a bark. And the same applies to the sound that a cat makes. A meow is a meow. However, the way we describe it may be different based on where we live and our primary language. In fact, that is the entire purpose of the research done by Wordtips.
Basically, the idea of this research is to figure out how we as individuals convert the way we hear our animals. And while this may come as a surprise to some, for others it may not, but basically different languages will translate the way our pets sound in different ways.
In North America, Australia, and the U.K., we may say woof woof and meow meow for dogs and cats, but in South America for example a cat might make the sound miau miau, or a dog would translate as au au or guau guau.
What did Wordtips uncover about translating the sounds that dogs and cats make
According to the press email we received, there are a few key findings that are actually quite fascinating when it comes to the interpretations of the sound that dogs and cats make. In fact, one of the key findings that we found fascinating is that “around the world, there are at least 40 interpretations of a dog’s bark.”
So what else did they determine? How about that in 13 countries that speak English, “dogs are known to woof, woof.” However, there are 22 other countries where the sound that dogs make is translated as either how, how or hau, hau.
Basically what they have determined is that there are “over 40 different phrases around the world” that are used to describe essentially the exact same noise. Essentially, while a dog makes the exact same noise no matter where they live in the world, it’s the way that we interpreted it that is different. And that makes perfect sense when you consider how many languages there are in the world.
Of course, there is also the way cats sound that was addressed and it quickly becomes clear that at least with cats many countries seem to believe that cats make a noise that starts with the letter M. Examples of this are meow, myau, muwaa, meew, and meo. And we should point out that it’s actually 22 countries that translate the way a cat sounds as meow. Unlike the way dogs sound, it seems like the cat sound is a bit more universal when it comes to translating it into the written word. Although, we do want to point out that the other primary letter that starts the way a cat sounds is actually the letter N. And if you’re anything like us, the sound N & M are definitely relatively similar.
We actually think this study is pretty cool, because we love learning new things about animals. But we especially love learning about them on a more global level. And while this may not be surprising to many, it is interesting to realize that just because we think a dog woofs or a cat meows, that doesn’t mean that people in other countries do.