Mainly just curious to see how many non-US people we have. I know some languages have more than one word for owl.
Where are you from, and how do you say owl where you are from, and what sound do they make?
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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It's "Hou" in french prononced smthing like "uu" in english. Do you know the famous song ?
"Dans la forêt lointaine,
On entend le coucou.
Du haut de son grand chêne,
Il répond au hibou.
Coucou ! Coucou !
On entend le coucou
Coucou ! Coucou !
Dans la forêt lontaine,
On entend le hibou,
Du haut de son grand chêne,
Il répond au coucou.
Houhou ! Houhou !
On entend le hibou.
Houhou ! Houhou !
On entend le hibou."
Yay! I was wondering where all my French speaking people got to since that is what started me being interested in this.
I knew Spanish worked in a similar way, so I was curious what other languages differentiated, since in English, all our owls are just "owls" unless we're calling them by their species.
Do people still differentiate hibiu/chouette or are the used interchangeably?
I had never heard the song before, but it was very cute!
Song Link
French people definitely make the difference. Maybe, they won't know which it is in front of an exotic owl that does not look like the hiboux and chouettes they know but most of the time, they won't be confuse. The eyes, the beak and the general form of the face is pretty different.
Forgot to post your owl. I thought I had read before France's most common owl was the Little Owl, thechevêche d’Athèna, or the European Pygmy Owl, Chevêchette d’Europe, but now when I search, I get a few different opinions. Some people also seem to use the Little Owl and the Pygmy Owl interchangeably. It's hard to find French owl info in English! I already posted the Little Owl for Spain, and the Pygmy Owl looks similar, I'll post the Boreal Owl, nyctale de Tengmalm, for you. He looks like a Saw-whet owl's body with a Little Owl's head.
I guess birds are pretty different in Brittany and Provence.
Funny thing, I just check the wikipedia page for owl and the english owl page is linked to the french page for nocturnal birds of prey. While the page for chouette and hibou have correspondence in other languages but not in english.
It's fun to see what things end up getting confused in translation! This turned out to be a fun topic.
These are the things I like being reminded of. I haven't been anywhere far out of the US just because it is so big, so I forget that most other places are still equally as diverse in climate and forest/grassland/mountains. That is over if the big things I like about following wildlife and ecology posts. It helps me feel closer to the places I might not ever see.
The earth is a crazy place. Some space like the US has the same climat for hundreds of kilometers and other like France have lots of different small climates in a place big like one US state...
Yet both have owls (^_^)
I found the sheet music for the song and printed it. I'll have to try and learn to play it.
Sheet Music Link