A little tidbit for the cat lovers.....

@Katlady2 (9904)
United States
April 4, 2007 6:37pm CST
I got this from an ezine I get in my email twice a week called CatNips. It's one of the ones through GopherCentral. Just a little food for thought. Enjoy! Why A "Cat" Is Called A "Cat" The English word "cat" is very similar to the word used for our feline pets in other languages spoken in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The table below lists the word for cat and the language: Kat Dutch chat French Katze German gatta Greek kottur Icelandic gatto Italian qattus Maltean katt Norwegian kot Polish gato Spanish katt Swedish Clearly "cat" is an ancient word that spread into many regions from a single source. The source appears to be Arabic because the oldest use of "cat" is in North Africa where the term is "quttah". A few other terms relating to cats originate from the Mediterranean. One is the word "tabby", which is derived from the Turkish word "utabi". And the general word for a cat in Turkey is "kedi", which may be the ancestor term for the English word "kitty".
3 responses
@catbvq (364)
• Philippines
27 Apr 07
Thank you for the information! May I add this one from our country...in the Philippines we call cat "Pusa" and its kitten as "Kuting." Here are some of it's translation from different languages: gato - Potugese and kot - Russian
1 person likes this
@Katlady2 (9904)
• United States
27 Apr 07
Thank you so much for adding those. It's always good to learn new things from new people.
@weemam (13372)
5 Apr 07
Thanks pal , that was really interesting , My eldest son loves things like this I will pass it on , I am afraid here in Scotland we just say Cat or kitten no special words xx
1 person likes this
@Katlady2 (9904)
• United States
6 Apr 07
Hey now..."Cat" and "Kitten" are special words all by themselves! LOLOL. Hope he likes them.
@anne25penn (3305)
• Philippines
5 Apr 07
very nice info. here in the philippines we call kittens "kuting" which is near kitten, but we have a different word for cat which is "pusa".
1 person likes this
@Katlady2 (9904)
• United States
5 Apr 07
Thank you for posting that hon. It's nice when someone is willing to teach their language to someone else (namely, me! LOL).