This map, published by Wordtips in 2023, shows how a cat's meow is represented in every country in the world.
To arrive at this data, the authors focused on the most widely spoken language in each country of the world, and consulted written sources to determine the most common way of writing a cat's meow in each of the languages. Despite the linguistic diversity, it is curious that most of the sounds begin with the letter m, making it one of the most universal onomatopoeias.
Among the most common sounds are the following:
- Meow / Meow (38 countries): dominant form in Spanish-speaking countries, much of Europe and parts of Asia.
- Meow (22 countries): form used in Anglo-Saxon countries.
- Muwaa’ (20 countries): form used in Arab countries.
- Miaou (9 countries): form used in French-speaking countries.
- Mjau (5 countries): form used in Scandinavian countries.
The map is very interesting, but it has a methodological flaw, as it does not assess dialectal variants. It also highlights the existence of a few examples that ignore the m-standard, such as the cases of North and South Korea (Yaong) or Malaysia (Ngiau).
Sources
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English (UK)