Animal characters who are able to talk (either in their own language or actually talking in human languages towards humans) sometimes have a special way of talking.
This often involves a Verbal Tic or accent based on an onomatopoeia of how they speak. For the Verbal Tic examples, a cat character saying "meow" (or whatever the language's version is) often. For the accent examples, sheep and goats will have their "ba-a-a-a" noise as their species accent, dogs have their "ruff" or "woof" sound as their species accent, the owls' accent consists of the "hoooos" they make, and snakes have a whole trope in how they overdo the "sssss" sound.
Sometimes, animals are given a vocal pitch that reflects that of the pitch level of the noises they make. For example, chipmunks are often given high-pitched squeaking voices to reflect the fact that they are small rodents that squeak. Mice, also being small rodents that squeak, are also given this vocal treatment, but to a lesser extent.
The Unintelligible and Speech-Impaired Animal examples can count as long as they are still speaking a human language or the audience can still make out some of what they are saying.
If the animal, instead, has a human accent based on its country of origin (such as kangaroos talking with Australian accents or pandas with Chinese accents), that goes under National Animal Stereotypes.
Subtrope of Fictional Accent. Supertrope to Sssnake Talk and Owls Ask "Who?". Supertrope of Trrrilling Rrrs when used to denote feline purring.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Tony the Tiger, mascot of the cereal brand "Frosted Flakes", voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft, claims that his cereal is "grrrrreat", sounding like a tiger's growl.
- Invoked in one televised ad for the canned beverage Mountain Dew, which had a Gen X goofball decide to butt heads with a mountain sheep. After three goes at the ram, the fool returns to his cohorts. They ask him if he's feeling okay. His response: "Not ba-a-a-a-ad."
Anime & Manga
- Pokémon: The Series: In the Japanese version Nyarth has a Verbal Tic of "nya" and a "cat sounding" voice. The English dub originally had Meowth say his name often as a counterpart, but they ultimately abandoned the tic.
- The Series Mascot from Yo-kai Watch, a cat youkai named Jibanyan, has a Verbal Tic of using "nya" at the end of his sentences. In the English dub this is replaced with him replacing "n" with "nya" (for example "Nate" becomes "Ny-ate").
- Persia the Cat Girl in Gate says "Nya?" instead of "What?" when confused.
- In his cat form, Nyanko-sensei in Natsume's Book of Friends peppers his speech with "nya"s. Averted with his true form.
- In the early 1980s English dub of Sanrio's film adaptation of Ringing Bell, Chirin the Lamb (voiced by Barbara Goodson) is occasionally heard talking with a bleating pattern. He starts to lose it after the death of his mother and gets more threatening as a result.
Fan Works
- When Swarm speaks in Sixes and Sevens, he stretches out the zzz-noise due to being mostly made out of bees.
Film — Animated
- Aladdin: Iago the macaw has a grating parrot sound to his voice due to being voiced by Gilbert Gottfried.
- Animal Farm (1954) has most of the animal cast (except for the pigs) only communicating by making normal animal noises. The only other animals with spoken dialogue are the sheep, who are given bleating accents, such as reciting "Two Legs Good, Four Legs Bad" while bleating the word "bad".
- The mice in Cinderella have high-pitched mouse voices.
- In Finding Nemo, Dory "speaking Whale" is represented by her talking in English in a moaning voice, strangely elongating the vowels to resemble a whale song. The whale she talks to actually understands what she says, suggesting whales in this universe really talk like that.
- Hoodwinked!: Japeth the goat bleats whenever he sings.
- The Lion King (1994):
- Pumbaa the warthog has a raspy voice that resembles porcine grunting and squealing.
- James Earl Jones was chosen as the voice of Mufasa because his voice sounds a lot like a lion roar.
- Valentino from Wish (2023) speaks with a deep gruff voice reminiscent of a goat bleating.
- Zootopia averts this... with one notable exception. Sloths... put long... and... irregular... gaps... between... their... words.
Film — Live-Action
- Animal Farm (1999) has the sheep given a "baaa" and "meh" accent.
- The animated farm animals in the "It's a Jolly Holiday," scene in Mary Poppins have their distinct species accents. For example, the horse's voice sounds like a whinny, the cow's voice sounds like a moo, the lambs' and ram's voice sounds like a bleat, and the pig's voice sounds like an oink.
- The sheep from the 1995 film Babe and its sequel all speak in a manner that sounds like actual sheep bleats. Notably when they recite the special "Sheep Code" "Baa Ram Ewe" to Fly.
- In the 2018 film Mowgli, many animal characters talk in a voice that resembles the sounds their species makes. Baloo has a deep, raspy voice resembling a bear's roars, Shere Khan has a soft voice with purrs, growls and snarls, Tabaqui has a high-pitched, giggly voice fitting for a hyena, and Kaa's voice has a hissing overtone which occasionally becomes Sssnake Talk.
Literature
- Redwall: Mostly averted, where different species have accents that represent different British social classes (hares talk like Stiff Upper Lip army officers, searats Talk Like a Pirate, moles talk like farmers, etc.). However, one book features bats who repeat the last word of their sentences, presumably because of their echolocation.
- Bravelands:
- Cheetahs have high pitched voices similar to a cheetah's chirp.
- Crocodiles have raspy voices.
- Foxes have higher voices than dogs in Survivors, fitting how a fox's yowl sounds.
- In The Wicked Years, Animals' voices reflect their species. For example, Doctor Dillamond is a Goat with a voice that sounds like sandpaper.
- In Mind Games, Danielle, when in her Magical Catgirl form, ends random sentences with "nya" and uses cat puns like "I'm purr-fectly aware.'' Made more hilarious by the fact that she does not know she's doing this, the System does it.
Live-Action TV
- Chockablock
- The sheep from the "Farmer Jake" segment in Episode 3 has an accent that makes it sound like it's bleating.
- The Rhyming Cat from Episode 8 speaks (or rather sings) in an accent which sounds like a cat meowing and also uses Trrrilling Rrrs to imitate purring.
- On Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Henrietta Pussycat spoke with a frequent "meow meow meow" in the middle of sentences, often after a verb. This is carried over to the spin-off series Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood where her daughter Katerina shares the same speaking pattern as her mother.
- There's also Donkey Hodie, who often throws "hee-haw" to his sentences. And Bob Dog, who goes into dog-like howling and whining tones.
- The "Mary Had A Little Lamb" episode from the 1990s direct-to-video series Mother Goose Stories by Jim Henson Productions has Mary's Lamb speaking in a shaky voice. When the lamb decides to become a student at Mary's school, the teacher at first doesn't notice one of the newer students being a sheep due to the way the lamb was dressed. The next day, the lamb is heard laughing (which sounds like bleating) which causes Mary's teacher to become suspicious that one of the students isn't a human. Eventually, the lamb reveals itself which causes her to pass out.
- The Muppet Show: Kermit the Frog has a deep, gurgly voice reminiscent of a frog croaking, while Miss Piggy has a high, screechy voice reminiscent of a pig squealing.
Music
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Chipmunks and the Chippettes are the Trope Codifiers for squeaky-voiced chipmunks.
- "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees features a few lines from the eponymous bird that's pretty much just a Yakky Doodle impression (falsely believed to be Donald Duck).
Video Games
- BlazBlue: Taokaka, a Cat Girl, ends her sentences with "meow" and sometimes put meowing puns into her words (such as "Molester Academeow" when she tried to say Military Academy). In the Japanese version she uses "nyasu" in place of "desu".
- Animal Crossing neighbors tend to insert vocalizations appropriate to their species at the ends of sentences; for example, cats will say some variation of "meow" or "mew", whereas dogs will say some variation of "woof" or "arf". Being that it's babble speak with text appearing on screen, you only know they say things like this by the dialogue boxes.
- Gharbad the Weak, an unique Goatman NPC from Diablo (1997), speaks
in a way that sounds like a goat's bleats.
- Molly the Sheep from the 1996 point-and-click game Toon Struck has a shaky voice similar to a sheep.
Web Original
Western Animation
- In 3-2-1 Penguins!, Bert Bertman has a high-pitched voice due to him being a hamster.
- The sheep from Planet Picket in The Green-Eyed Monster have the "baaa" in their accents.
- Cow from Cow and Chicken likes to end her sentences with "Mooo~".
- Gentle Heart Lamb from the Care Bears franchise (notably the 1980s incarnations) speaks in a bleating tone, even as she's scared or sad.
- Classic Disney Shorts:
- Clarabelle Cow has a cadence reminiscent of a mooing cow.
- Donald Duck, his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and the Daisy Duck prototype Donna Duck all have somewhat unintelligible, quacky duck-accented voices. Daisy only had a duck accent during her debut in "Mr. Duck Steps Out". Huey, Dewey, and Louie downplay the duck accent greatly in DuckTales (1987), but had it again when Donald's voice actor voiced them in Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse, and lack it entirely in Quack Pack and DuckTales (2017).
- Clara Cluck has a strong clucky chicken accent to her voice.
- Humphrey the Bear has an ursine sound to his The Unintelligible talking voice.
- Chip 'n Dale have high-pitched chipmunk voices.
- Even Mickey's iconic falsetto and Minnie's higher pitched falsetto, when you think about it, were inspired by the fact that they are mice.
- Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood: Daniel Tiger has a grrr Verbal Tic and Katerina Kittycat has a meow Verbal Tic.
- Lambie from Doc McStuffins bleats when she speaks, often saying that things are "baaa-utiful". She would sometimes be heard letting out a cute bleat when she is seen cuddling or hugging a toy or anybody else.
- In Happy Tree Friends, while the characters always talk in gibberish, some speak in a similar way to their real counterparts.
- Lammy the lamb's gibberish sounds more like a sheep's "baaa".
- Lumpy's voice is also deep and his screams, when not high-pitched, sound like a moose's moaning.
- Pop, Disco Bear and Fliqpy have deep, gruff voices that many bears, real and fictional, are known for.
- Sniffles has a shrill, nasally voice, not unlike the sounds anteaters actually make.
- Flaky makes high-pitched screeches and whines similar to those of actual porcupines.
- Giggles has a high-pitched voice, a classic chipmunk trait.
- Nutty chitters like a real squirrel would.
- Astro from The Jetsons speaks in a very similar manner to Scooby-Doo (both characters were originally voiced by Don Messick).
- In Legend of the Three Caballeros, the Minotaur initially speaks with nothing but "moo" sounds. After revealing that he actually speaks English, he still adds "moo" into his sentences.
- Looney Tunes:
- Porky Pig seems like a stutterer, and indeed, he was a stutterer in the first few cartoons he is in. But Word of God says that Porky Pig's stutter is actually a species accent based on pig grunts.
- The Tasmanian Devil, despite having an Informed Species, his voice has a very believably Tasmanian Devil sound to it. He speaks intelligibly with a Tasmanian Devil sound to it in Tazmania, but in the original cartoons and in other works, he is also The Unintelligible.
- Every animal in Peppa Pig make sounds of their species as their Verbal Tics.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show has Daisy the Cow, who has a tendency to quietly say "moo" at the end of his sentences.
- Scooby-Doo: Scooby-Doo is famous for his dog-sounding voice and replacing most beginning consonants with an "r" sound.
- Silly Symphonies
- In the short "Who Killed Cock Robin?", the owl judge says the "Who" in the title phrase with a long hoot at the beginning.
- Peter Pig from The Wise Little Hen (yes, the same cartoon Donald Duck debuted) has a deep voice resembling pig's grunts, while the hen herself had a voice like a chicken's cluck. Donald's ducky voice fit in perfectly with those two.
- Lady Goat from Sonic Boom bleats whenever talking.
- A What Could Have Been example: in early sketches for Muppet Babies (2018), a concept for the second female character (which eventually became Summer Penguin) was Bobbi Baba, a sheep who talked in Sheep-ese, saying things like "I hope I'm not baaaathering you." This would have got more pronounced when she was nervous.
- Catra, the cat-based villain from She-Ra: Princess of Power would often talk with mewls, or emphasizing the purr in perfect, not unlike Catwoman from the 1966 Batman.
- Buurpoes the kitten from Dutch preschool series Woezel & Pip frequently talks with a purring pattern.
- Lollichop the Sheep (voiced by late voice actress Russi Taylor) from the 1983 Easter Special Peter and the Magic Egg frequently speaks in a bleating pattern.
Real Life
- Birds trained to mimic have distinct qualities to their voice. Parrots have cartoonish-sounding squawking voices, and Ravens have cartoonish falsetto voices.
- Hoover the seal had a rather deep voice when he talked.
- Dogs taught to mimic phrases or words, such as "I love you" or anything else. They "say" it with howling and whining noises.
