Why Kotiko?

In Russian, котик (kotik) means "kitty." Kotiko is that word, slightly bent, the way a learner bends a word they're still getting to know. That's fitting, because Kotiko is for learners.

Our mascot is a small black kitten named Mira.

Cats have a trick we haven't learned. Ask a cat in Moscow and it says мяу. In Beijing, 喵. In Madrid, miau. In Tokyo, nyā. In Seoul, yaong. Every language writes it down differently, and every one of those people knows exactly what the cat wants.

People are harder. We split ourselves into languages and then stand on either side of the line, sure the other side is saying something we'll never understand. Most of the time, we'd understand just fine, if someone swapped in a word or two.

So that's what Kotiko does. It takes the words you've learned and slips them into the pages you already read, one word at a time, until the line between your language and someone else's starts to blur.

Mira's name is a clue, if you speak a few languages. In Spanish, mira means "look." In Latin, it means "wonderful." In Russian, мира means "of the world," and also "of peace."

Look. The world is wonderful. It's just been waiting for us to understand each other.