The call / name of the gecko

This is a garrulous little creature who vainly and profoundly likes to enunciate its own name.

Lots more gecko gabbing here:

Note the wide range of vocalizations and verbalizations.

The Neo-Latin gekko and English 'gecko' stem from Indonesian–Malaysian gēkoq, it is a Malay word borrowed from Javanese, from tokek, which imitates the sounds that some species like Tokay gecko make.

(Wikipedia)

A splendid new paper by Olivia Anna Rovsing Milburn on the lore and literature of the gecko ("Noises Off: The Image of House Geckos and Tokay Geckos in Imperial Era Chinese Literature") will soon be published in Sino-Platonic Papers.

 

Selected readings

• "Another early polysyllabic Sinitic word" (9/21/21) — a detailed disquisition on the Sinitic word for "gecko" (géjiè 蛤蚧), including in a number of different topolects, with a lengthy bibliography
• "That gecko's pleasant accent: Martin and Mellors" (6/16/10)
• "Magical Penis Wine" (9/23/21)
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