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The Japanese word for cat, “neko”, apparently etymologically translates as “quadruped that goes ‘nyan’” (which is the Japanese equivalent of “meow”). The Mandarin word for cat, IIRC, is “mao”.
The cat's penis (Mao Zedong)
Also, small birds are “tori” in Japanese, likely after the sing-song sound they make (tri-tri-triii)
Ducks are named after a quacking sound in English... And Indonesian&Malaysian; “bebek”!
I could go on for a while but in general it's not very uncommon for animals to be named like a Pokémon!
Wait until you find out why it's called a Whippoorwill.
hence nyancat but I don't know where the poptart and rainbow come from.
A rare breed that got hunted to extinction from meme overuse
I was there, 5000 thousand years ago, toiling in the mines for the memes. But we went too deep...something wake up...
In thaï and lao it's meo also.
But what about Mao Disease?
I read somewhere that there's another story of origin (maybe folk etymology though) that "Neko" means something like "star-child" (nagareboshi no ko)
In German, children often call dogs "Wauwau" and "Mietze" is another word for cat that's also onomatopoetic.