Monday, April 22, 2013

にゃにゃ (nya nya)

The cat counterpart to ワン ワン.  Like ワン ワン, it can refer to the animal or the sound (meow, meow).

According to the friend who taught me this one, using it as a verb (にゃにゃする, nya nya suru) also means to make love.

On the "Know Your Meme" website you can read about the   dance, which is described as "a dance characterized by bending one’s upper body in side-to-side swing motions."

See page at:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nya-nya-dance

They also post a video of it:


And I was most impressed that the Urban Dictionary site gave seven defintions of the word    .
Among them are "a suffix added to the end of sentences uttered by a cat/human-cat in Japanese culture," e.g. "I'm a cat-nya!" and "a word they use in Tokyo Mew Mew. You can use it when your happy or sad. If you get excited you could say it. Some people say it instead of hello. Others use it a question.. ."

See Urban Dictionary page:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nya


3 comments:

pan said...

Nya nya is actually this

http://shoujikishindoi.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/onomatopoeia-3-smilelaugh.html?m=1

a form of smile

where nyan nyan is actually what you're discribing here.

they sound and spell similar so that's where most people and website make mistakes.

pan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wesley H.W. Tong said...

Hi Kari,
Sorry for not having responded all this time. I hadn't been checking for comments on my blog, to tell the truth because I never checked on how to do it. I just now noticed that blogger has a "published comments" thing to click on. I clicked on it and read your comment.

Thank you, Kari. I appreciate the link and the information!

おつかれやま!!! (In romaji, "Otsukareyama!!!" In kanji, お疲れ山?)

 All of my former students in Japan officially ended their school year this week, I believe. Some will return in April, others have graduat...