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Sunday, June 27, 2010

World Cup Soccer Adverts

Shadow, our very own "meerkat"

If you've been watching the World Cup Soccer in South Africa, you will have seen the Pepsi adverts. The  cute suricates in the adverts are known as meerkats. When visiting my grandfather on the farm in the Free State, meerkats were a common sight i  the veld/fields.  They'd be sunning themselves, looking for food, the young ones playing rough-and-tumble while a lookout stood guard on a mound. At the approach of danger, they would all literally disappear into the earth! While touring the Kgalagardi Transfrontier Park a few years ago, Grant and I would stop the vehicle and watch the meerkat colonies near the road. The lookout stands on his hind legs, front paws (hands) held out,  an almost human stance.  

Since Shadow arrived, we've noticed that he is able to stand on his hind legs with his front paws held loosely in front of him. We've given him the nickname of, you guessed it,  meerkat! However, it's not the South African (English) name of this animal that we call him; and it's not the Arabic version, although I do know what meerkat is in Arabic. (lol!)  

It is meerkat in one of the eleven official languages of South Africa.


The isiZulu word for meerkat is uchakide.  

To say it, you pronounce the "u" as "oo", then you click your tongue on "ch"; the "a" sounds like "u" (as in "huh"); the last sylable to sound like "geet".

Easy huh? Try it!

Note: leave out the first "oo" which makes the clicking easier!

Ironically, "meerkat" is actually an Afrikaans word (yes, Afrikaans is another one of the eleven official languages in South Africa!) and directly translated means: "More Cat"

For more pet posts around the world, click here.

8 comments:

  1. How interesting. I'm not watching much of the soccer games... I did see the USA lose today.... Sigh!!!!! But--I love seeing your little meerkat.... I don't think I have ever seen a cat walk on his two back legs before. How neat....

    Thanks for sharing.
    Hugs,
    Betsy

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  2. That Shadow is a kick! However you pronounce that. I couldn't get the click.

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  3. Thank for the pronunciation guide, Jo. I practiced it several times till I could almost say it smoothly! It's hard to get the tongue click in the middle of a word.

    Shadow/Uchakide really does resemble a meercat when standing!

    Is English or Afrikaans spoken the most in SA?

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  4. sure is amazing!

    the fresh post is up but linky is acting up and will let you know once the linky is up. till then you can hop over and leave your link in the comments section!

    cheers!

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  5. A Mercat shadow, lol ! how sweet ! It looks so funny when cats stand up, Arthur did it when he was little but now not anymore.

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  6. Yes, I saw a bit of it...Shadow is Growing!! Such a cutie...Now I need to go untangle my tongue...Hahaaa...
    hughugs

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  7. Cute that your cat can stand on his hind legs like a meerkat. I tried the pronunciation, but I doubt anyone who spoke the language would understand me!

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