The purpose of onomatopoeia is to imitate sounds with words, so you might expect the words for animal sounds to be similar across languages. For the Pudding, Vivian Li shows that this is not always the case.
Onomatopoeia offers a fascinating glimpse into the interaction between sound and language. The way humans mimic animal sounds reflects not only shared biological instincts but also distinct cultural filters. Although onomatopoeia intends to imitate faithfully, its differences are ultimately far from arbitrary. In trying to capture the same auditory essence, English interprets a pig’s sound as [ojŋk], yet Hungarian hears [røf], and Vietnamese hears [ʔut it]. Even among the three animals discussed, cats are more consistent in their sound interpretation, while pigs are more variable — whether because pigs’ vocalizations are innately more complex, or because they call upon different phonotactic rules.
All the words are clickable so that you can hear pronunciations for different languages. Colors indicate phone groups, such as nasal consonants and mid central vowels.
