Word Buzz Friday

The word of the day is Onomatopoeia! Most of you language nerds know what onomatopoeia means, I'm sure. It is a long word that simply means the word you are saying says it's own name. I'm sure you learned about this in grades school right as your teacher asked you to write down the sounds that your favorite animals make. Now, onomatopoeia is not limited to just animal sounds. Other sounds as well, like pop,bang, boom, snap, even crackle fit nicely into the onomatopoeia family.

However, for today's word buzz we are going to focus mainly on sounds that animals make in different languages.

Bird- English tweet-tweet Spanish pío German Piep Piep

Cat- English meow Spanish miau German miau

Dog- English woof Spanish guau German wau-wau

Rooster- English cock-a-doodle-doo Spanish kikiriki German kikiriki

Notice how the German and the Spanish are more similar than the English? Why do you think that is? What other animal sounds can you think of in any of the countries you've visited or languages you've learned? Or, simply what are your favorite onomatopoeia words? (You can also vote in our new poll on the left hand side!)