How to say "awww!" in different languages?
April 25, 2019 9:42 AM   Subscribe

Today it occurred to me that many, if not all, languages must have an equivalent to the English "awww" (number of "w's" varies) in response to something adorable. Am I right? What words/sounds for this do people know of in other languages? Please include details about intonation too, if it's distinctive.
posted by Mechitar to Writing & Language (15 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm not sure this is true even for all varieties of English. I think of that longdrawn awww as an Americanism. But having moved to the UK as an adult, without either children or pets, I might just not have realised it has, or is coming to have, the same place in British English.

In Urdu you might just say kitna pyara (so sweet / lovable).
posted by tavegyl at 11:39 AM on April 25, 2019


When I was growing up (in the UK) we said ahhhhhhh not awww. I think awww is more common now, probably due to exposure to more informal American speech/text on the web.
posted by kadia_a at 12:15 PM on April 25, 2019 [2 favorites]


In German it can be rendered as oh, och, ach, oj, or hach, depending on the context (eg “aww that’s cute” versus “aww that’s too bad”). Source 1, source 2.
posted by jedicus at 12:19 PM on April 25, 2019


Is the Japanese kawaii (rhymes with hawaii) a version of this?
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:51 PM on April 25, 2019


In Dutch: oh, och, ach. Much like the German, but the -ch pronounced with a 'hard' g.
posted by ouke at 12:52 PM on April 25, 2019


Seconding kawaii, though I wouldn't say that it rhymes with Hawaii. You can hear a typical exaggerated pronunciation partway through this. It means "cute."
posted by pinochiette at 1:41 PM on April 25, 2019 [2 favorites]


Hmmm. I too think of "awww" as very American. In Polish, I think I would say something like "ooooh" with the same inflection, or maybe a very high pitched "mmmmm".
posted by M. at 1:46 PM on April 25, 2019


"와", pronounced wa, is an exclamation used to express joy and can be used in this context, though its more broad than "aww". They don't repeat the character the way english repeats things. (Though if you search for 와와와와 you get a lot of videos of cute korean babies patting their mouth to go wawawawa)
posted by FirstMateKate at 1:56 PM on April 25, 2019 [4 favorites]


In Bengali 'Oley' is a very common exclamation which is used to mean 'awww'. It is derived from 'O-rey' (generic expression of surprise, or calling - really hard to translate, actually) pronounced as 'oley' to imitate the way a child might say it and sometimes might be said in a higher pitched voice again to imitate a child. It can be used on its own or in conjunction with other words. O-rey is also used for the same purpose but not exclusively.

This may not be true of all Bengali speakers, as there are plenty of different dialects.
posted by unicorn chaser at 4:14 PM on April 25, 2019


In Spanish it's 'Ayyyy'
posted by vacapinta at 11:55 PM on April 25, 2019 [2 favorites]


Austrian would be "Moi". (eg. "Moi is des liab!" = Awww, how cute!)
posted by sohalt at 1:24 AM on April 26, 2019


In mandarin I might say, ai (like the English pronoun I), e.g. ai hao ke ai, aww how adorable.

In Shanghai I might prefer ai ya, which is a more general exclamation of emphasis. You could say, ai ya if you drop a plate or you could say ai ya dia sa ning (this dialect doesn't have an official romanization that I know, but I'm literally saying, aww, cute enough to kill a man).
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 3:36 AM on April 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


Mandarin (Taiwan): Wa or yaaa (the a sound in the wa can be short or drawn out, the a in ya is generally always drawn out a bit). Yaaa is sometimes followed by an aspirated breath from the throat at the end (as sometimes happens with aww). Intonation wise, wa's of either length is usually a high tone falling evenly (like someone going 'woo!'), and yaaa can either also be a high tone falling evenly, or a slow crest and fall, similar to a higher pitched version of Owen Wilson's 'wow' or Yass Cat's 'yass', the sound of which if held long lingers at the peak.

Aiya in Taiwan would probably be used more by China background/adjacent people or older people (some overlap in this venn diagram)(the yaaa mentioned above may be a shortened version of aiya, I'm not actually sure)

Japanese: kawaii as mentioned above (the ii sound is drawn out like 'ee', the duration of which is determined by however long it takes to verbally express your adoration)- for any age. Girls up to younger women sometimes go 'kyaaa' (like a little scream). Younger people also tend to say 'yabai', sometimes drawing out the a sound, kinda like 'oh nooo' (this is too cute what do I do)/'omggg'
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 8:49 AM on April 26, 2019


If you just want a sound and not a word, a lot of Japanese women I know will make a drawn-out sound like "eh" (just much longer) going gradually up in pitch and volume for anything that surprises them, so if you see something cute unexpectedly, you'd go "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhh?"

In Swiss German, apparently "jö" (pronounced yö) is the way to go.
posted by LoonyLovegood at 2:47 AM on April 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


Japanese- kawaii is also often preceded by 'uwa' (a sound drawn out). Sounds like 'wa' but there's a quick u sound sliding into it; how pronounced that is depends on the person I guess.
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 12:49 AM on April 30, 2019


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