SV: Animals' talk (jara: German letter names)

 --- Jake skrzypszy:

> I find it interesting that, in English at least, dogs have comparitively
> many "charactaristic languagefied sounds."  In the case of the dog, there
> is arf, woof, bark, and others?
No, in Dutch it's the same: "woef", "waf", "kef". The difference depends fully
on the size of the animal; in this case from large to small.
The word for barking is "blaffen", but no dog would ever say "blaf blaf".

I thought I should contribute with the Swedish words. In Swedish "to bark" is
att "skälla" /xEl:a/, but you can never say "skäll skäll" if you imitate a
dog. If you want to imitate a dog you say "vov" or "voff" (the o sounding
something like /8/) and you can also call a dog "vovve" or "vovsing" (smaller).

> What determines the diversity of sounds we put in the mouths of our animals?
Our feelings towards them, perhaps? The Dutch, in general, are similarly
sentimental about their pet animals (especially dogs and cats) as the English.
As I have understood from certain literature, in the more Southern realms of
Europe animals are rather looked upon as either apparatus that have to perform
a certain function, or steaks on four legs.

Jan

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"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

/Micke