Meow
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A cat meowing
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A cat meowing.
A meow /miˈaʊ/, also spelled miaow, is the most familiar vocalization of cats. A meow can be assertive, plaintive, friendly, bold, welcoming, attention soliciting, demanding, or complaining. It can even be silent, where the cat opens its mouth but does not vocalize. Adult cats rarely meow to each other, and so adult meowing to human beings is likely to be a post-domestication extension of meowing by kittens.[1]
Spelling
In English, the first use of the spelling "meow" was in 1842. Before that, the word could be spelled "miaow", "miau", or "meaw".[2]
Language differences
Different languages have correspondingly different words for the "meow" sound, including:
| Written Form | Languages in Use |
|---|---|
| meo-meo | Vietnamese[3] |
| meong | Indonesian |
| miaou | French |
| miau | Bulgarian, Belarusian, Croatian, Hungarian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Malay, German, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Ukrainian |
| miauw | Dutch |
| miao (喵) | Mandarin Chinese, Italian |
| mjav | Danish |
| mjau | Swedish and Norwegian |
| miaŭ | Esperanto |
| miyāʾūṉ (میاؤں) | Urdu[4] |
| mjá | Icelandic |
| mňau | Czech |
| ngeung | Kapampangan[5] |
| njäu | Estonian |
| niau | Ukrainian |
| niaou (νιάου) | Greek[6] |
| nyā (ニャー) | Japanese |
| ya-ong (야옹) | Korean |
In some languages (such as Chinese 貓, māo), the vocalization became the name of the animal itself.
See also
References
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Look up meow in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cats meowing. |
- ↑ "Meowing and Yowling". Virtual Pet Behaviorist. ASPCA. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
- ↑ "Meow". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
- ↑ Peggy Bivens (2002). Language Arts 1, Volume 1. Saddleback Publishing. p. 59. ISBN 978-1562-54508-6.
- ↑ فیروز الدین, مولوی. فیروز اللغات اردو جامع (in Urdu) (2nd ed.). Lahore: Feroz Sons, Ltd. p. 1334. ISBN 9690005146.
- ↑ "Ngeung, “a cat’s meow;” ngumeung, “to meow;” ngeungan, “against whom the cat meows, like at one who is eating.” (p. 96)
- ↑ νιαουρίζω. Word Reference (in Greek). WordReference.com. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
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