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Re: onomatopoetic animal sounds

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 18, 2001, 12:44
En réponse à daniel andreasson <daniel.andreasson@...>:

> > Speaking of this, does anyone know the origins of Spanish > _graznar_, Italian _starnazzare_ and French _caqueter_? > These are supposedly used as verbs for the sound of the duck. >
As for French caqueter (/kak'te/ or /kak@'te/), I would suspect an onomatopoeic origin (it sounds quite like the sound of a duck in other languages, even if in French the sound is "coin coin" /kwE~kwE~/), maybe indirectly since there exists also a noun "caquet" /ka'ke/ used mainly in the expression "rabattre son caquet à quelqu'un" (to make so shut up), which seems to refer to the special beak of the duck (but is used nowadays only for the expression I told you). Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr