Okay, tiuc/diuc is one of them. Which other ones are there? I'm guessing "Huít! Huít!" might be one.

I haven't heard any special words in Irish for cocks crowing other than the "cock a doodle do". I've just asked a native from Leitir Móir and she said the same.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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I'm working my way through Dinneen, etc., tracking down references.

De Bhaldraithe has vác vác for "quack, quack" but that has to be fairly recent since it has a v.

Found some more calls to animals:

héing "a horse-call, to the right" (though it is a good candidate for "neigh".)
hurrais "call used in driving away pigs"
huis "said to a cow when being driven"
hó bó, hó bó "call used in driving cows"

borradh is "purring" so I suspect borr borr* might have been "purr purr" at some stage.
gnúis is in Dinneen as "(a low)". Looks like an old word for "moo".

gogáil is "the cackling of a hen"

(And found another interesting term gogaidhe "a childish name for an egg". In Australia (and other parts?) children say "googie-egg" and sure enough Oxford has "goggie noun. N. English & (now only) Scot. dial. L18. [ORIGIN Prob. alt. In Scot. use cf. Gaelic gogaidh. Cf. goog.] (A child's name for) an egg.")


I'd be very surprised if there never was one. Animal cries are in every language and are very different in their form - people were probably mimicking animal calls long before they started talking to each other.

Such a pity this information is being lost from Irish.

WFM's "cocky-leery-lá" rings a bell and I am still trying to track it down. (As for the one in Caoimhín's first link, it is missing some síntí fada and should at least be cuc-a-dúdal-dú.) Perhaps WFM's would be be spelt cuca-lírí-lá*, but I have yet to find it anywhere.

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[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Here's another one from De Bhaldraithe:

amh-amh "bow-wow"

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[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Irish people say "gogaidhe" also for a childish name for an egg. Unfortunately, I'd say we are the last Irish generation to be brought up with this though! Its no where near as common now! Funny enough we were discussing this in Old Irish the other day and apparently gogaidhe developed from the old.ir "ug/ og" "a n-ug/ a n-og" > the egg. Egg is clearly Indo- European. Scottish Gaelic "ugh" is much more loyal to the Old.Ir.

Wikipedia's article on the etymology of the word "egg", its wikipedia!, but it looks like its been very well researched and its very exhaustive:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/egg



Yes its a great pity and what's worse is people are starting to use recently made up versions and pretending, though probably unconsciously, that they were always the versions used. Something like this should be found out if not known already and used instead or else publish them in dictionaries so people can be aware of them- but that would make to much sense for the Roinn aistriúcháin who probably don't even know that words like these exist or did exist for describing animal calls.

I find this fascinating: Do animals actually roar or call differently in different countries? or does the perspective of different languages actually interpret the calls differently. So just to make sense of the question: Would an English native speaker hear Cok-a-doodle-do from, lets say, a Japanese rooster or would he hear it as a Japanese person would Kooko...whatever it is ?

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

I can confirm that Japanese people and English people will listen to the same rooster and the Japanese person will insist it is saying "kokekokkou" and the English person will insist it is saying cock-a-doddle-doo. One of my Japanese students made the comment to me on the Aran Islands, "See, even Irish roosters say 'kokekokkou', not 'cock-a-doodle-do'!"

I have fourteen roosters and they all crow differently - sometimes four "syllables", sometimes five. Being multilingual, I can see how all of the different onomatopoeic forms fit in their own vague way and yet none is completely right.

Roosters have a gutteral r sound (phonemically a broad dh would be very close) that includes warbling that humans can't imitate. Generally the coca/koka part is right but after that it is more like roro or rororo. I think "doodle" in English is trying to mimic the rhythm and warble (like the word "yodel").

If it were up to me, I might even propose cuca-dhódal-dhó* (but only as an academic exercise, of course.) WFM's cuca-lírí-lá* fits nicely too.

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[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

The word gogaidhe sure reminds me of an old nursery rhyme:

Gugalaí-gug, mo chircín dubh,
Suíonn sí síos is beireann sí ubh,
Ubh inné is ubh inniubh,
Gugalaí-gug, mo chircín dubh.

I always assumed that gugalaí-gug meant something like "cluckety-cluck". An bhfuil an ceart agam?

And speaking of bird sounds, I ran across this to-day:
Gu-gúg! – Cuckoo!

_________________
[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

There appears to have been different terms used for driving and calling animals, depending on the district, with 'Suc Suc' for calling calves, and 'tiuc tiuc' for chickens being common, even today in English speaking districts.

As for cock a doodle doo, I wonder if the Scottish Gaidhlig 'Gog-a-ghuidhe ghaoidhe' means anything ?

I haven't been able to find any leads from it yet but gog-a certainly looks more Gaelic than cuc-a.

And Gog-a-ghuidhe ghaoidhe has the gutteral sound I mentioned above.

_________________
[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).