[airza]

Japanese uses “nyaa” for meow. I’m sure there are other counterexamples.

[Petrosz007]

In hungarian when “[the cat is] meowing” we say “[a macska] nyávog”, which means to make sounds similar to ‘nyí’ [1]. Now that I think about it, it’s weird, because the we use “miáú” for the actual sound, but we don’t use the verb “miákol”, which apparently exists.

[1]: https://uesz.nytud.hu/index.html?uuid=a95e306a-7590-1014-865...

[kortex]

I would actually contend that "meow" and "nya" are pseudo-cognates, they are onomatopoeia of the same sound. M and N are both nasals, and iˈaʊ̯ and ia are close in vowel space.

[lampington]

Thanks! TIL that nyancat is something like "meowcat"

[resonious]

Can also add that dogs say "wan", which I found surprising. Seems even the onomatopoeia can differ quite a bit!