What Do Animals Say?

No one knows how language began, but one interesting idea is the"bow-wow"theory. It says that people first spoke by imitating the sounds they heard.

A tribe would all use the same barking sounds to talk about a dog. This are called "echoic" words, because they echo the sound they describe. English has more echoic words than any other language.

Examples: buzz, caw

We know that not all dogs have the same bark. St. Bernards "woof woof"but poodles tend to "arf arf!" Other languages use different words.

Here are some animals sounds from languages around the world. Try them! Do you think any of the foreign words sounds more like the animal say?

Pig: pigs "oink" the United States, but they make very different sounds elsewhere. Russian pigs "khru-khru"and Romanian once " guits-guits." The Greece, big pigs "gru" and little ones "koi". In France, pigs say "oui-oui". Perhaps French pigs are more agreeable than American ones!

Dog: in French, dog's "bow-wow is "oua-oua" (pronounced "wah-wah"). In Italian, its "bu-bu", and in Rumanian, "ham-ham", Vietnamese dogs "gau-gau", and Turkish ones "hov-hov"

Rooster: In American, they "cock-a-doodle-doo!" In France, they "cocorico!" Spanish ones "quiquiriqui!" In Arabic its "kko!" And in Russian, "kukareku!".