Why do we write the sound of a dog barking as bow wow? Isn’t that noise more like woof, woof or arf, arf or ruff ruff? Surprisingly, the oldest of these is bow wow, or as William Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest (Bookshop|Amazon), bowgh wawgh. It’s difficult to render these sounds in writing, but in Catalan, it’s bup bup; Italian bao bao; Greek, γαβ γαβ (gav gav); Spanish, guau guau; German, wuff wuff; Korean, 멍멍 (meong meong), Albanian ham ham. This is part of a complete episode.
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