Foreign Animal Language
During 1994 my wife and I had the occasion to attend the Olympics in Lillehammer. We stayed with a traveling-companion's sister in Oslo. (The sister was the graphic artist who designed all the pictographs for the events, Sarah Rosenbaum.) The trip from Oslo to Lillehammer was a long one and required an early start every morning, i.e., three A.. or so.
One morning on the way up to Lillehammer my wife and our friends were riding on a bus that was pretty much Norwegian only. I started up a chance conversation with the gentleman next to me. Just because it was the first thing in my mind, probably because we were passing a farm, I asked him what a pig said in Norwegian. He looked at me rather startled and asked what I meant. I told him that in English a pig says, "Oink, oink." He laughed and replied, that in his country a pig said, "Nuf, Nuf."
A woman sitting across from us started laughing loudly at the humor she found in this rather absurd conversation. Still, within a few moments all the people around us were running through the various noises of the barnyard denizens in Norwegian and English. You will be happy to know that a Norwegian dog says, Vuf, Vuf. A Norwegian horse says KaNick, KaNick.
I don't know if this matches up with the focus of your piece, but I thought you might find it humorous nonetheless.
-Jay
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