TT Encore

Hi bloggie buddies ~ Not The Mama is busy this week at a festival, so we're showing an encore presentation of one of our favorite Purrchance To Dream Thursday Thirteens! Enjoy! ~ Daphne






Since Not The Mama says I'm too smart for my own good, I thought that today we would explore the word "cat" in other languages.

1. The Latin name for cat is felidae, and the trinomal scientific classification for the domesticated cat is felis silvestris catus. Wonder why there aren't more cats named Sylvester -- other than the obvious Putty Tat, of course. Have you ever known a kitty named Sylvester?

2. The Spanish name for a male cat is gato. Hence Chloe's beloved sweetie (may he rest in peace), Senor Gato, means Mr. Cat. A senorita kitty would be gata. Closely related to the Spanish is the Italian: gatto.
Another language that separates male and female cats is Hebrew; male cats are KHaTooL' and female kitties are KHa'TooLaH' -- that's an awful lot of syllables for just "cat", if you ask me -- and they sound more Klingon than Hebrew, but I'm not a Jewish kitty. An online Klingon To English dictionary, by the way, states that the Klingon word for cat is Daq.

3. The French throw in an H to make cat = chat.

4. The Yiddish catalog cat as katalog. Do their libraries have card katalogs?

5. In Esperanto, a cat becomes kato. Is Esperanto a real language? Are there really Esperanto kitties out there?

6. German cats are called katze. So if Dr. Seuss had been German, we would have Der Katze in der Filzhut.

7. Russian kitties are koshka. Were there Bolsevik koshka?

8. In China, a cat is a mao. Meow from mao. However, just across a tiny stretch of water in Japan, a cat is neko. Is this pronounced neee-ko or necco, like necco wafers?

9. Korean cats are ko-yang-i. Can't you just see Mama-san yelling out the back door, "Ko-yang-i! Ko-yang-i!"

10. In Africa, a Swahili kitty is a paka.

11. Egyptian cats, in Arabic, are biss. But the ancient Egyptians said "ba" -- their cat goddess was Bast, goddess of the hearth and home, and her cult center was Bu-bastis.

12. If you're a Lord Of The Rings fan, you can go to www.nevrast.net and learn that the Elvish word for cat is miel.

13. And here at home in America, the word cat is interchangeable with kitty.
I prefer Bright Shining Center Of The Known Universe, myself, but I answer to Daphne.


If you have other translations for "cat", please leave them in a comment.
Hope you enjoyed this!

Meow for now ~ Daphne

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Mo and The Purries

7 comments :

  1. This has been very informative. Will there be a PoP Kwiz?

    Luf, Us

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  2. well whatever you call them, i want one!!!

    smiles, auntie bee

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  3. Daphne you are very, very smart, and very beautiful too. I don't know any other languages except a little bit of french (Canada is a bilingual country after all).

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  4. Great list! We learned a lot and now I am a multi-lingual cat! Hope things slow down soon.

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  5. Thanks guys. I am a smarter kitty now because of you.

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  6. Daphne, this was fantastic!!! And now Mom wants some Necco wafers...She used to eat them all the time as a kid, but not the chocolate ones, those were gross...

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  7. If you are adopting, my kitties are gifted. Calico Esperanta is particularly promising.

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