A little tidbit for the cat lovers.....
By Katlady2
@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
@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".