在不同的语言中，关于动物发出的声音几乎没有共识。这在日语和其他语言中都适用。例如，在英语中，牛说“moo”，但在法语中，它更接近“meu”或“meuh”。在日语中，牛说“moo-moo”。美国狗说“woof”，但在意大利，人类最好的朋友发出的声音更像“bau”。在日语中，它们说“wan-wan”。下面是各种动物在日语中“说”的声音。

日本动物的声音

该表在左列显示了动物的名称，动物名称的音译为粗体，下面的描述为日语字母。动物的英文名称列在第二列。第三列列出了动物发出的粗体声音，下面是日语字母。动物在英语中发出的声音包含在第三栏的日语拼写下面，便于与日语中的动物声音进行比较。

These animal sounds are usually written in the katakana script, rather than kanji or hiragana.

The Bowwow Theory

The bowwow theory posits that language began when human ancestors started imitating the natural sounds around them. The first speech was onomatopoeic and included words such as moo, meow, splash, cuckoo, and bang. Of course, in English especially, very few words are onomatopoeic. And around the world, a dog might say "au au" in Portuguese, "wang wang" in Chinese, and as noted, "wan wan" in Japanese.

Some researchers have suggested that the animals a culture is most closely aligned with will have more versions of the sounds they make in their respective languages. In American English, for example, a dog might say "bowwow," "woof," or "ruff." Since dogs are beloved pets in the U.S., it makes sense that American-English speakers would want to have a menu of sound words for this pet.

The Dog in Japan

Dogs are also quite popular as pets in Japan, where they were domesticated during the Jomon period in 10,000 B.C. Though katakana script is most common, you can write the Japanese word for dog, inu, in either hiragana or kanji — but since the kanji character for dog is quite simple, try learning how to write it in kanji.

Phrases referring to dogs are as common in Japan as they are in the West. Inujini means "to die like dog," and to call someone a dog in Japenese is to accuse him of being a spy or dupe. The sentence Inu mo arukeba bou ni ataru (when the dog walks, it runs across a stick) is a common Japanese saying, meaning that when you walk outside, you could possibly meet with an unexpected fortune.

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Abe, Namiko. "10 Animal Sounds in Japanese Words." ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, tl80.cn/animal-sounds-in-japanese-4070963. Abe, Namiko. (2021, February 16). 10 Animal Sounds in Japanese Words. Retrieved from https://www.tl80.cn/animal-sounds-in-japanese-4070963 Abe, Namiko. "10 Animal Sounds in Japanese Words." ThoughtCo. https://www.tl80.cn/animal-sounds-in-japanese-4070963 (accessed September 2, 2021).

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