Linguistics

[Pessi]

And also "miu", "mau" and "mou" for some reason. I knew one that said "räyh" but that was just because she was so very, very old.

This made me remember a nursery rhyme book I used to read for my kids when they were babies. One rhyme was about four old cats named Miu, Mau, Mou and Miumaumou =)

Some cats also say niu.

[starfallz]

In Japanese, cats say "nyan" or "nyaa."

[Meghan]

We have just the one "meow" in the States, with purring described as "purr purr purr". A small or cute meow might be a "mew". I've also seen "mrow!"

To call my cat, I actually whistle loudly. He comes running, just like a dog!

[wildfire]

In Norway cats say "mjau" (but you might have known that already, since it's already been shown in the webcomic.)

And I believe people use different phraces to call for their cats, I use "pus-pus-pus" or "pusi-pusi-pusi" which basically means "kitty-kitty-kitty".

My cousin use something like "prrjuus-prrjuus-prrjuus" or probably something like "prews-prews-prews" if I were to use english'er, which also could mean "kitty-kitty-kitty".

[SugaAndSpice]

I am the neighbhorhood/school cat, so I have a vocabulary of my own. It  mostly consists of mrows, nmeuws and hggt!s. mrow:just kinda hey whassup I see you, nmeuw: hey! over here! and hggt!: hisssss! for the hggt, I would use hiss, but only snake hisses sound like hiss. and I couldnt find any better combinations of letters for it. I can purr! I honestly have NO idea how the hay I do it.

[viola]

This is something everyone can participate in, whether they speak English as a native speaker or as a nonnative speaker. It's a language test that was set up by some students at MIT and it tries to guess what dialect of English you speak and what your native language is. There are no right or wrong answers. It learns how dialects work from having more people take it and from their responses, so some languages/dialects (especially less common ones) are not as well recognized by it, but will become so if more people take it. I am going to put the link here:

http://www.gameswithwords.org/WhichEnglish/

And you guys should all go take it. Then post a picture with your results and tell us how close it was to guessing your native language/dialect of English.

Here are my results:


For me I would say it is spot on. I am from Canada and I spent most of my childhood there. I also spent some time in the US which makes sense for why it is there for my second and third options. And for native language, I am a native English speaker, so that is correct, the Dutch is probably because it's similar to English, and the Norwegian might be because of knowing Icelandic because it's the closest thing to Icelandic besides Faroese (my friend who is a native Icelandic speaker and learned English later took it and it told her she was a native Norwegian speaker because there haven't been enough Icelanders taking it for it to know the difference yet). So overall, it pretty much nailed it for me. What about everyone else?

[Ana Nymus]

This is exactly right for me (which I don't think is too surprising: I'll bet a lot of Americans have taken this quiz). And the Canadian and Black Vernacular are probably the dialects other than my own that I hear most often, so that makes sense. I don't know exactly why it has Norwegian and Swedish as possible native languages since I know absolutely nothing about either language, but any insight would be much appreciated

This was fun! I like these sorts of quizzes.

[Solovei]

They got the Canadian right, but their guess for my native language is way off XD But maybe that's because I've really fallen out of practice with my Russian and have lived in Canada for like 14 years now...

[Kizzy]

I took this thing last year. The results are almost identical and are far from being true

[kjeks]

Results:

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. South African
2. English (England)
3. Welsh (UK)

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Finnish
3. German

How does south african english sound?
Thx for the test!

[Sunflower]

I have a feeling most native U.S. English speakers get this as their answer set (except for African-Americans, maybe).  Dutch and Norwegian as possible 2nd languages is probably the program's default answer when actually no other languages match the speaker's responses, since they're both in the Germanic language family with English.

I think the algorithm is way too general in only having two dialects for the U.S., when there are very strong regional differences.  Still, it's a fun quiz, and the full results should be interesting.

[videovance]

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. New Zealandish
2. Welsh (UK)
3. Australian

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Swedish
3. Chinese

Actually, this is pretty accurate! Except for the Welsh and Swedish, ahahaha.

[ParanormalAndroid]

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:

1. Scottish (UK)
2. English (England)
3. New Zealandish

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:

1. English
2. Hungarian
3. Polish

Hm, nope.

[Dane Murgen]

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:?

1. Singaporean
2. US Black Vernacular / Ebonics
3. Australian
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:?

1. Italian
2. Spanish
3. Russian

Almost, but not quite there. (I speak the English as a native language from New Zealand, with a bit of Filipino English. I know no Italian, Spanish or Russian.

[Fen Shen]

"Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. New Zealandish
2. Singaporean
3. Australian

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Chinese
3. Romanian"

Erm... nope. I've never been to any of the English speaking countries listed as my dialect and believe I've learned more or less British standard.
However, my English can't be that bad since the algorithm thinks it's my native language... 
I don't know anything about neither Chinese nor Romanian, and I'm amused my native German doesn't even show up. I guess not many Germans have taken the quiz yet so the algorithm still needs to learn.