有聲雙語(yǔ)閱讀 | 牛也是有口音的

Researchers who study bovine behaviour have recently discovered that cows, like humans, have different regional accents. Cows in a small herd may all sound very similar, while the same species on the other side of the country or in another country may have their own distinct accent. This phenomenon has also been observed in birds. In English, the word used for a cow sound is “moo”. This type of word is onomatopoeic. The naming of the word is based on the sound that the word makes. Words like “boom”, “tweet” and “pop” are all examples of onomatopoeia. In many languages, people use the word “moo” or something very similar to vocalize the sound of a cow. This is not the case for other animals, such as pigs. In English a pig says “oink”, while in other countries it says “boo-boo”, “oof”, or “heh-roo”.

研究牛行為的人員最近發(fā)現(xiàn)，奶牛和人類(lèi)一樣，有著不同的地區(qū)口音。某一群牛的叫聲聽(tīng)起來(lái)可能非常相似，而在這個(gè)國(guó)家另一邊或另一個(gè)國(guó)家的同一種?？赡苡兴麄冏约邯?dú)特的口音。這種現(xiàn)象也在鳥(niǎo)類(lèi)中被觀察到。在英語(yǔ)中，用來(lái)表示母牛聲音的單詞是moo。這種詞是擬聲詞。這個(gè)詞的命名是基于這個(gè)詞發(fā)出的聲音。boom, tweet和pop都是擬聲詞的例子。在許多語(yǔ)言中，人們使用“哞”這個(gè)詞來(lái)指牛叫聲。