Meow
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A cat meowing
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A meow (American English) or miaow (British English; /miˈaʊ/),[1] is a vocalization of cats. They have diverse tones and are sometimes chattered, murmured or whispered. Adult cats rarely meow to each other, so an adult cat meowing to human beings is probably a post-domestication extension of meowing by kittens, a call for attention.[2]
Spelling
In English, the first use of the spelling "meow" was in 1842. Before that, the word could be spelled "miaow", "miau", or "meaw";[3] the first of these still dominates in British English.
Language differences
The word for the "miau" or "meow" sound varies in different languages, including:
| Written form | Languages in use |
|---|---|
| muwaa' (مٌواء) | Arabic[4] |
| meo-meo | Vietnamese[5] |
| meong | Indonesian |
| meow | English |
| miaou | French |
| miau | Belarusian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Finnish, German, Ido, Interlingua, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish |
| miauw | Dutch |
| miao (喵) | Mandarin Chinese |
| miao | Italian |
| miyav | Turkish |
| miav | Danish |
| mjau | Norwegian and Swedish |
| mao (ম্যাঁও (myām̥ō)) | Bengali |
| meogre | Kyrgyz |
| miaŭ | Esperanto |
| miyāʾūṉ (میاؤں) | Urdu[6] |
| mjá | Icelandic |
| mňau | Slovak, Czech |
| ngeung | Kapampangan[7] |
| njäu | Estonian |
| nyav | Ukrainian |
| mi'au | Lojban |
| niaou (νιάου) | Greek[8] |
| nyā (ニャー) | Japanese |
| ya-ong (야옹) | Korean |
| myau (מיאו) | Hebrew |
| myau (מיאַו) | Yiddish |
| mjau (мјау) | Serbian |
| miáú (miau) or njaú | Hungarian |
| myau (мяу) | Russian |
See also
- Cat communication
- Meow the Jewels, a hip hop album by Run the Jewels with all instrumentals replaced with meowing
- Jingle Cats
- Miao (disambiguation)
- Cross-linguistic onomatopoeias
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. |
- ↑ "Miaow at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary". Merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
- ↑ "Meowing and Yowling". Virtual Pet Behaviorist. ASPCA. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
- ↑ "Meow". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
- ↑ الدغامين, أحمد (March 6, 2008). "السموع : أسماء أصوات الحيوانات والطيور بالعربية ( الجزء الأول )". Abu Dhabi. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
- ↑ 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."" (PDF). Hau.edu.ph. p. 96. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
- ↑ νιαουρίζω. WordReference.com (in Greek). Retrieved 28 May 2012.
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