I don’t have a single favorite, but every now and then a critter will become the subject of my latest ADHD hyperfixation. I remember thinking skunks were cool in 5th grade. They’re like badgers with chemical weapons. For the months leading up to getting my first guide dog I devoured stuff about dogs in general. I had always had pet dogs so it wasn’t a new subject, just a more intense interest.
For a while it was octopi, then parrots. For some time in 2015 or early 2016 it was possums, the US’s only marsupial.
Right now it’s monkeys. I used to think monkeys were gross and disturbing in an uncanny valley sort of way, so humanlike but not human at the same time. But I’ve taken a shine to orangutans. They’re quiet and introverted like me. Also new world monkeys like capuchins and woollies. Having a prehensile tail would be awesome.
Thank you for sharing all that! You’ve given me a lot to read up on. I was intrigued when you mentioned the Owl of Athena/Owl of Minerva in modern religious context.
Also very interesting about the confusion in Spanish about the confusion of the barn owl and screech owl. There is another person here I talk with about the confusion of them in Mesoamerican religion, so I’ll have to see that paper.
Owls are present in many belief systems, in good and bad incarnations, so I’m always curious to hear about them.
@anon6789@lemmy.world @asklemmy@lemmy.world
The paper I mentioned is this one: https://digibuo.uniovi.es/dspace/handle/10651/23598
It’s an open paper, but it’s entirely in Spanish. Also, the things thereby described can’t find much parallels in English because it involves gendered nouns (missing from English language which has just “the”; curiously it’s a thing in German (“die/der/das”), with which English shares origins).
However, here’s how I’d summarize it: in Spanish, both “lo buho” and “la lechuza” translate to English “the owl”, but the latter is specifically a word for barn owls and it’s a feminine noun (“la”, the-she), while the former is the more broad of a word and it’s a masculine noun (“lo”, the-he). Given this context where owls are to be linked to feminine, it became consensus to use “lechuza”, instead of “buho”, to refer to the “Owl of Athene” (the Little owl), because Athene is feminine so the noun should be feminine as well. Hence the confusion.
In other romance languages, such as French and, to some extent, Portuguese, Strigidae owls (especially Athene noctua Little owl) is correctly feminine gendered.
French has chouette (Strigidae without prominent ear tufts, which includes Little owl), chevêche (specific word for Little owl) and chevêchette (Pygmy owl and other very small owls) are all feminine nouns (but they got hibou, which is masculine, for “horned” owls).
Portuguese varies. Here in Brazil, owl names are often compounds with the root “coruja” or “corujinha” (“corujinha-do-mato” screech-owl, “coruja-buraqueira” burrowing owl… even Tytonidae have no specific differentiation over here as she’s called “coruja-das-torres”; not native from Brazil, but the Little owl would be called “Coruja de Atena”, “corujinha” ou “coruja-pequena”), all feminine (except for the augmentative “corujão” which isn’t exactly used for owls, rather a slang to refer to nocturnal people). In Portugal (and I suppose Angola, Moçambique and others), I learned they use the word “mocho”, which is masculine, including for Little owl (“Mocho-galego”).
When it comes to Latin, noctua is feminine, but būfus (seems to be specifically for eagle owl) is masculine. Greek has gláfka and koukouvágia, both feminine (but also got Latin cognate boúfos).
Linguistics in this regard is fascinating. My personal research also involves words across languages (including “dead” languages, such as Sumerian thanks to Halloran’s Lexicon with transliterated entries e.g. “nínnamušen” owl, “mušennínna” is fearsome owl-woman). Many of the words for owl (“owl” itself) are onomatopoeias for hoot (Hindi uhoo, Japanese fukurō, etc), which quite of reminds me of the phenomenon in which “m” is a universal phoneme shared among words for “mother”.
I really appreciate all the time put into your replies!
If you haven’t discovered us yet on !superbowl@lemmy.world, you should join us. The French and German communities there have been very helpful there, and there is also a person that researches Aztec religion where we have discussed some of their linguistics as well and the trouble people have with determining what kind of owl Chiquatli is supposed to be.
Hearing some of the Portuguese owl words is helpful as well. I try to find photos and articles from all over the world, and having you all explain the languages to me helps me greatly.