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Tinah N
what is the animal 'cat' called in your language?
Gatto means Cat in Italian.. In my native language we also call it gatto.
What do you call 'cat' in your native language?
Aug 2, 2019 4:47 AM
Comments · 32
3
Kseniia writes: @drasvi, does anyone really say киса where you live? I've always thought the word belongs to the Bronze Age! In my experience it's usually "котик" or "котенька" :)
You’ve discovered Drasvi’s secret — born in the bronze age of Russia, he is still alive. “In the end, there can be only one.” (“The Highlander”)
To the original question: I like the Chinese word for "cat"; it's 貓 (Mandarin: mao, Cantonese: maau).
August 2, 2019
2
The Arabic word actually has the same origin as the Italian and English words. They’re all from Latin. In Modern Standard Arabic, it’s “git” for masculine and “gitta” for feminine, and it came from Latin through Syriac.
Interestingly, in the Kuwaiti Arabic dialect, the word is “gatoo” for masculine and “gatwa” for feminine. I don’t know if this came from MSA or Italian, because there are actually quite a few Italian words in some Arabic dialects, mostly through Libyan Arabic, because Libya was a colony of Italy.
August 2, 2019
1
Mao 猫in Chinese
August 6, 2019
1
@Phil, I don't know. Immortality could work well in other parts of the world, but everyone who has read "Monday Begins on Saturday" knows that in Russia an immortal person probably wouldn't have been able to live through the tsarist period without getting de-nostriled and exiled to Solovetz in perpetuity. And I think the internet connection in Solovetz is still not good enough for itаlki which is<em style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"> changing the way the world learns foreign languages</em>.
@drasvi, well, I'm pretty sure I didn't use it in my childhood, and I've never heard it from a child in my whole life (at least, not as a synonym of <em style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);">кошка</em>). I mean, everyone knows what the word means but it was something only really old people used when talking to children. You can't be 90 years old now, can you? And I heard "котенька" in Moscow, by the way. Are you sure you're not behind the times?
August 2, 2019
1
Kseniia, actually I remembered "kisa" because in Finnish cat is "kissa":)
There is also "kis-kis-kis" - said to call a cat to come closer.
What is Bronze age? In my childhood it was common and usually words used with kids don't change quickly: people hear them in childhood and then they start using them when they have children themselves. Indeed, I often hear "котик" (I take it as "little male cat") but I don't hear "котенька". If you grew up to the west form Moscow, and if "kisa" came from Finnish, that would explain why people don't use it where you grew up:) Funno-Ugric langauges were once spoken here... But not to the west from here.
There is also diminutive "kiska" used to translate English "pussy" in the sense of a body part. Which I find not a very good idea:/
"Why all the words in different languages are close to each other?"
ᑎᗩDᗩ, some think that this word may come form Ancient Egyptian langauge. If cohabitation of humans and cats also spread from there, this would explain similarity.
There is also "kis-kis-kis" - said to call a cat to come closer.
What is Bronze age? In my childhood it was common and usually words used with kids don't change quickly: people hear them in childhood and then they start using them when they have children themselves. Indeed, I often hear "котик" (I take it as "little male cat") but I don't hear "котенька". If you grew up to the west form Moscow, and if "kisa" came from Finnish, that would explain why people don't use it where you grew up:) Funno-Ugric langauges were once spoken here... But not to the west from here.
There is also diminutive "kiska" used to translate English "pussy" in the sense of a body part. Which I find not a very good idea:/
"Why all the words in different languages are close to each other?"
ᑎᗩDᗩ, some think that this word may come form Ancient Egyptian langauge. If cohabitation of humans and cats also spread from there, this would explain similarity.
August 2, 2019
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Tinah N
Language Skills
Chinese (Mandarin), English, Italian
Learning Language
Italian
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