Meow
A cat meowing
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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 do not meow to each other, and so adult meowing to human beings is likely to be a post-domestication extension of mewing 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 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[4]
miyāʾūṉ (میاؤں) Urdu[5]
mjá Icelandic
mňau Czech
ngeung Kapampangan[6]
njäu Estonian
niau Ukrainian
niaou (νιάου) Greek [7]
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.

References

Look up meow in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  1. ↑ "Meowing and Yowling". Virtual Pet Behaviorist. ASPCA. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
  2. ↑ "Meow". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  3. ↑ Peggy Bivens (2002). Language Arts 1, Volume 1. Saddleback Publishing. p. 59. ISBN 978-1562-54508-6.
  4. ↑ "miaŭ". Vikivortaro (in Esperanto). Wiktionary.org. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
  5. ↑ فیروز الدین‏, مولوی‏. فیروز اللغات اردو جامع‏ (in Urdu) (2nd ed.). Lahore: Feroz Sons, Ltd. p. 1334. ISBN 9690005146.
  6. ↑ "Ngeung, “a cat’s meow;” ngumeung, “to meow;” ngeungan, “against whom the cat meows, like at one who is eating.” (p. 96)
  7. ↑ νιαουρίζω. Word Reference (in Greek). WordReference.com. Retrieved 28 May 2012.
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