Certain words in the
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
represent animal sounds: the noises and
vocalizations of particular animals, especially noises used by
animals for communication. The words can be used as
verb
A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
s or
interjection
An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. It is a diverse category, encompassing many different parts of speech, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curse ...
s in addition to
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
s, and many of them are also specifically
onomatopoeic
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
.
List of animal sounds
See also
*
Animal communication
Animal communication is the transfer of information from one or a group of animals (sender or senders) to one or more other animals (receiver or receivers) that affects the current or future behavior of the receivers. Information may be sent int ...
*
Animal epithet
*
Animal language
*
Bioacoustics
Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion and reception in animals (including humans). This involves neurophysiological and anatomical ...
*
Cat organ
A cat organ or cat piano (german: Katzenorgel or ''Katzenklavier'', french: orgue à chats or ''piano à chats/piano chats'') is a hypothetical musical instrument which consists of a line of cats fixed in place with their tails stretched ou ...
&
piganino
The Piganino is a conjectural musical instrument using a keyboard as to produce sound from pigs by poking them. Satirical use includes further terms as in german: Schweineorgel (pig organ), french: l’orgue à cochons, and "Hog Harmonium", (a p ...
*
Cross-linguistic onomatopoeias
Because of the nature of onomatopoeia, there are many words which show a similar pronunciation in the languages of the world. The following is a list of some conventional examples:
Human sounds
Consuming food or drink
Bodily functions and ...
*
Field recording
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibra ...
*
List of animal names
In the English language, animals have different names depending on whether they are male, female, young, domesticated, or in groups.
The best-known source of many English words used for collective groupings of animals is ''The Book of Saint Al ...
*
List of onomatopoeias
This is a list of onomatopoeias, i.e. words that imitate, resemble, or suggest the source of the sound that they describe. For more information, see the linked articles.
Human vocal sounds
* Achoo, Atishoo
* Chomp
*Cough
*Hiccup
* Hum
* Slurp
So ...
* "
Old MacDonald Had a Farm
"Old MacDonald Had a Farm" (sometimes shortened to Old MacDonald) is a traditional children's song and nursery rhyme about a farmer and the various animals he keeps. Each verse of the song changes the name of the animal and its respective noise ...
"
* "
The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)"
References
External links
List of animal sounds to download, listen and use for free.Derek Abbott, University of Adelaide
{{DEFAULTSORT:Animal Sounds
Linguistics lists
Zoosemiotics