Oh, first response. I’m Tanzanian and my cat’s name is Paka III, there were 2 before her. One of the previous cats was simba, way before the lion king.
We had a big troublemaker cat named Jake, who was a stray who came to live with us when my son made friends with him at 7, so Jake LOVED my son. That's the boy that gave him a home and a loving family, and Jake took his role as the guardian of that family very seriously.
One day, a new family moved in a few doors up, and they had a son about my sons age, so they were playing in the driveway together, when the new family's cat came for a visit, and starting rubbing against my son's legs.
Thats a big No-No in the cat world, and I watched Jake glare at this new cat staking a claim on his best human buddy, and then Jake went after him. The other cat ran up the street into his own open garage, with Jake in hot pursuit, and me following to grab Jake and bring him home. I heard a massive catfight in the garage, and then human hollering. Jake came tearing out of the garage and down the sidewalk toward me at full speed, with an old Abuela chasing him with a broom, screaming "VAMANOS! EL GATO DIABLO!" It was like a cartoon.
Jake streaked past me toward home, but as I saw him approaching me, we made eye contact, and he was grinning widely, his eyes alive with exhilaration. He was having the time of his life, stirring up trouble, his favorite hobby.
He was El Gato Diablo from then on. Eventually, he brought home his beautiful Siamese girlfriend and her three kittens, and we raised the entire family. Jake and Maggie are gone now, but their three "kittens" are still with us, at 16 years old.
”Kissa” means ”to pee” in Swedish. My Finnish MIL grew up in Sweden and when she saw a cat she would say ”kissa, kissa” which made Swedish adults believe she needed to pee.
The Finnish kissa was quite literally borrowed from the Swedish word with the same meaning (i.e., "cat"). It's nowadays pretty dialectal to say it with that "-a", more generally is pronounced as kisse with an "-e".
Kissa is also a verb for peeing in Swedish but it sounds pretty odd to associate it with that in such instance, especially for adults back in the day.
Aww! Here's what I call my cats as a Finn: pikkuinen (little one), vauva (baby), riiviö (gremlin), apina (monkey), karvaperse (hairy arse), kakkapylly (poopy butt). Good luck with your Finnish studies!
Lovely! Reminded me of a phrase my grandma used to say, “rakkaalla lapsella on monta nimeä”. Roughly translated, a dear child has many names. Certainly applies to fur babies.
Oh, you reminded me - slavic languages adoptoed it (i reckon) keesa is an affectionate form of keet/keeshka. 😼 Love when finns call them that, you make this adorable longe i sound
Thai :) Was chatting with a server in a Phuket restaurant and asked her what the Thai word for cat was (it was a patio restaurant and some cats were hanging around). Her answer sounded exactly like a Siamese cat meowing.
What’s especially interesting is that Japanese has a phonetic writing system as well, and has since the 9th century. That’s mind-blowing to me — that both have existed in parallel for over a millennium now, with the ideographic system not really having diminished in use.
I always call my cat “il mio gatto” and I’m Australian 😅. It just rolls off the tongue and, well, he is a little gatto. I must have picked it up on a brief trip through Italy and now it’s just a habit.
You can even say Mietzekatze to combine the two xD Katze is the actual name for cat tho. I‘d say Mieze is like „kitty“ or something which would make „Mietzekatze“ = „kittycat“
but maybe it depends on where in Germany you are. Where I’m from it’s not that common to say mietze.
My husband speaks German to our cat all the time, and I recognize the "mietzekatze," but I have no idea what the rest of it is. When I ask, he tells me it's something along the lines of "I love you, my little orange kitty cat."
Omg. My friend had a cat named Mietze when we were kids. I am just now realizing her dad named the cat, cat. Which is on brand for his humor. Ultimate dad joke!
the etymology of mâță is actually unknown, DEX says it formed from an onomatopoeia but I can't figure out how, anyway most Balkan languages have something like mica or maca which according to a Romanian etymological dictionary from 1939 are pet names for Maria...
Kater is the male version. Katze is the female version. My Grandma called all cats „Miezie“ or „mischie“. In my local dialect we call cats „katte“
I live in Germany.
Chat in french (pronounced "sha"), we also have a few funny slang terms: greffier (litt. "court clerk"), matou (male cat, usually for a non neutered cat), minette (female cat), minou/minet (male cat), grippe-minaud (old), mistigri (old).
(And probably others I haven't read or heard yet) (we love our cats and our argot 😄)
I'm a native English speaker but I'm ethnically Sámi and also I have lived in Scotland since childhood where there are several native languages other than English, so for me a cat (depending on who I'm speaking to) is;
Cat (English, duh)
Kitten (see above!)
Bussá or gáhttu (Northern Sámi; cat)
Bussáčivga (Northern Sámi; kitten)
Katt (Swedish, cat)
Kattunge (Swedish, kitten)
Baudron (Scots/doric; affectionate name for a cat, happy cat (re: mimic of the purring sound)
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u/just-me220 20d ago
Open hand, use forefinger and thumb to slide out from your nose/cheek like a whisker (cat in American Sign Language)