Re: micifuz, mico

From: Evelyn
Message: 68021
Date: 2011-09-07

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
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> From: Torsten <tgpedersen@...>
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 6:07 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: micifuz, mico
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> Thor Stone: Can you translate that into a language I know? It definitely looks interesting. Any etymology beyond Scandinavian to Germanic? Is it definitively onomatopoeic? Does it go bak to some other language's onomatopoeia?
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> Dansk Etymologisk Ordbog
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> 'I. mis, en, kælenavn til en 'kat';
> no. mis, miss, sv. miss(e), ty. Mies(s);
> substantivering af II. mis.
> - Jf. kissemis, misse.
> â€" Sml. II. kis.
> II. mis interj. lokkeord til en 'kat';
> no., sv. miss;
> dannet til mi, som gengivelse af kattens lyd;
> se u. III. kis.
> - Jf. I. mis.'
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> http://da.wiktionary.org/wiki/missekat
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> Torsten
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Seems to me these words for cat all have an onomatopoeic element to them. As suggested in Torsten's reference from the Dansk Etymologisk Ordbog, they may be imitating the sound that cats make, but I am more inclined to think that they represent sounds which humans make to call cats (lokkeord). In English one commonly calls a cat with 'puss puss puss', 'psspssspssspsst', or that kissing sound. All of these have sibilants or hi-frequency frication, which would be expected to get the attention of cats, who have very discriminating hearing in the high frequencies. The same sibilance is a feature of names for cats in other Germanic languages, such as Danish 'missekat' or Swedish 'kissekat' as in the reference above, and also German 'muschi'. Many of these cat words contain labial consonants which might reflect the fact that labialization is a feature of how people in many cultures talk to babies, and also to pets.