Are Animal Sounds in Different Languages Accurate Representations?

[BillTre]

Are these real dogs sounds from other languages, or did the guy just make them up?

 

[fresh_42]

Don't know the others, but in German it is Wau-Wau (pronounced like Wow but with a V at the beginning).

 

[phinds]

ARF !

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

My Gracie Girl coonhound whines when she knows it's time to eat, pee, jump on the king size bed . . . !
I love her and she knows it!

 

[symbolipoint]

The sounds of dogs are those which the dog makes. Any human attempt to represent some of those sounds using WORDED speech, like some word, "woof", or "arf", or the like, is just a piece of what A HUMAN DOES WITH WHATEVER LANGUAGE HE HAS OR KNOWS. Now we know why we are introduced to Onomatopoeia in junior high school and high school.

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

SCIENCE AND HISTORY

Dog Speak: The Sounds of Dogs

Understanding dog barks, more than just noise

By Julie Hecht, February 2013, Updated March 2020

[ . . . ]

Dogs are anything but mute, and while we usually focus on wagging tails and beguiling eyes, vocalizations—among them, barks and growls—provide us with another window into dogs’ everyday experiences.

[ . . .]

Social species are known to be much noisier than animals who lead solitary lives. Snow leopards roam the mountains of central Asia in near silence, but groups of monkeys do a lot of highvolume chattering. So, given that dogs and their wild progenitor, the wolf, are über-social, it’s no surprise that both produce a wide range of vocalizations: they bark, whine, whimper, howl, huff, growl, yelp and yip (among other nuanced sounds). From the earliest moments of their lives, dogs and their canid relatives produce tonal yelps and whines, and atonal barks and grunts appear in the first few weeks of life in conjunction with the onset of social behavior.

There’s a big difference between the bark of an adult dog and that of an adult wolf, however. Dogs seem to play every instrument in the orchestra, hitting the highs of the flute and the lows of the tuba, sometimes with the duration of a Wagnerian opera. Plus, there seems to be no context in which a dog won’t bark: They bark when alone and with other dogs. Some bark before, during and even after a ball is thrown. A car goes by or the doorbell rings and barking ensues. In contrast, wolves bark less frequently and in fewer contexts, primarily for warning or defense.

[ . . . ]

https://thebark.com/content/dog-speak-sounds-dogs

 

[hutchphd]

I found this for lotsa criitters:

https://www.dailyedge.ie/noises-animals-make-in-different-languages-1134372-Oct2013/

 

[jtbell]

Finnish dogs say “hau-hau” (pretty much like “how-how” in English)

For other Finnish animals, see here.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Finnish dogs say “hau-hau” (pretty much like “how-how” in English)

Turns out Finnish dogs and Polish dogs speak the same language.

 

[fresh_42]

Turns out Finnish dogs and Polish dogs speak the same language.

And we have the same sound with a V at the beginning. The silent barks go "wuff = vooff".

 

[Klystron]

While this thread is about the sounds dogs make, I am intrigued by words for animals.

The Thai word for dog หมา pronounced "ma" does not sound much like a bark to me.
The Thai word for cat แมว pronounced "meow" definitely sounds like a cat vocalization.

If you expect Thai for cow วัว to sound like "moo", you would be disappointed; cow is pronounced "uwa", somewhat similar to Latin for grape uva. In Thai "moo" means pig หมู .