In Bengal, the sound a cow makes is described as hamba. In the Netherlands, cows say boeh, in Korea um-muuu and in parts of Mexico, and somewhat improbably, in my view, they say choka.
So reports Adam Jacot du Boinod, in his book The Meaning of Tingo, which is a collection of words from around the world.
The book was languishing in the remainder bin but proved magnetic when it flopped open to pages about domestic animals.
It’s odd how people with different dialects interpret the sounds that animals make – sounds that are presumably pretty consistent no matter where they roam.
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Goats in Peru say jap’apeyay, but in Russia they content themselves with a simple mee.
Hunk-hunk is the noise emitted by pigs in Albania. In Hungary, they say rof-rof-rof. The noise made by sheep in Vietnam is be-he-he-he, which seems just as accurate as the English baaa.
Chick noises appear to be the most consistent, according to the book: ciu ciu in Albania; csip-csip in Hungary; jiap-jiap in Thailand. But in Peru, tojtoqeyay is equivalent to the peep-peep chick noise. I guess it depends how you hold your lips.
The best part of Tingo, and the reason for its compilation, is the discovery of words for which we English speakers haven’t yet perceived a need.
A prime example is the word tingo itself, which comes from Easter Island: to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by borrowing them.
In the category of “there’s actually a word for that?” how about areodjarekput, an Inuit word meaning “to exchange wives for a few days only”?
In the same vein:
l ho’oauwaepu’u (Hawaiian): to stick the tongue under one’s lip or to jut out the chin and twist the lips to the side to form a lump, as a gesture of contempt.
l kucir (Indonesian): a tuft left to grow on top of one’s otherwise bald head.
l achaplinarse (Spanish): to hesitate and then run away in the manner of Charlie Chaplin.
The book reports that the Japanese have the most vivid description for hangers-on: kingyo no funi. “It literally means ‘goldfish crap,’ a reference to the way that a fish that has defecated often trails excrement behind it for some time.”
Other than farm animals, there aren’t many references to agriculture in the book, but one mention is worth a giggle.
Nubie yam, a Ghanian word, literally means a finger farm. It refers to a farmer who points to his farm but does little more.
We don’t know of any finger farmers within The Western Producer readership!
