Going Gaga - The Language of Animals in Japan

We’ve all grown up learning the sounds of familiar farmyard animals. Whether we are country folk or city kids, we all know that a cow says “moo” and a sheep says “baa”. It’s Sesame Street stuff really. Knowledge that we acquire at an early age, often before more mandatory things like the alphabet or numbers past five. Well, I did anyways.

Of course as we grow older, we are introduced to other languages, and the way that people of different countries hear the world around them. It’s not surprising that a French dog, for example, gives its “woof” with a French accent, eliciting the somewhat haughty “owaff”. Generally speaking though, the animals of Europe all speak with the same dialect. I mean, just look at The Aristocats; cats just happen to speak with French accents.

Come to Japan however, and it’s not only the people that communicate in a language that’s all too alien to the Western eardrum, but apparently the animal kingdom also has a whole new language to get your head round.

My first experience with the voices of Nipponese beasties was back in Tokyo, not long after I arrived in the country. Being a big fan of pigs (one day, I shall own my own and he shall be known as Pigby, having grand adventures with a duck named Stuart whilst wearing a most fetching monocle), I had a pig shaped key-ring, which led my students to giggle about, crying “boo boo”. Confused, I asked my floor manager on the matter, who explained that pigs here do not say “oink”, as to which I am naturally accustomed, but in fact say “boo boo”. Hmm. And that was just the beginning.

Thereafter, I discovered that a pigeon’s cry is known as a “po-po”, whilst an elephant says “pa-oom” (I’m not actually sure what an elephant says in English. I always figured it was just a “trumpet”) and a frog “geru-geru”. A dog “wan-wan”s and a cow “gwon”s. A rabbit meanwhile, perhaps one of nature’s most non-vocal creatures, apparently says “pyowm-pyowm”.

My favourite however, is the duck. We all know the old saying that a duck’s quack has no echo, right? Well, I thought I had disproved this, as a family of ducks had been splashing about in the river just outside my house a few months ago, with their voices distinctly resonating along the banks. However, turns out ducks here do not quack, but in fact say “ga-ga” (hence the picture… I had an image of them singing the opening lines of “Bad Romance” whilst going about their ducky business), thus keeping the theory intact.

There are exceptions however; a Japanese sheep does say “meh”, and a cat’s purr is a “neow”, which are both pretty close to their English counterparts.

So, next time you’re strolling through the countryside, listening to those all too familiar sounds, spare a thought for the creatures of Japan, whose cries, quite frankly, sound bugger all like the real thing.