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September 10, 2003
C'est Chouette!
A few weeks ago, I went to the Ballard Locks and surrounding park. There was some sort of bird show there, with trained professionals handling eagles, owls, and other birds of prey. I could identify the hawk, the horned owl, but then they brought out this ghostly white bird with dark sunken eyes. I suddenly experienced something I hadn't for at least a decade. Here was an animal whose name I knew only in French - une chouette!
Having the majority of my elementary education taught in French (I attended two Francophone - not just French emersion - schools), knowing the French and not the English name for some words wasn't uncommon in my pre-teens. For this to happen in my mid-twenties blew me away, especially considering my French has officially slipped from "sub-par" to "rusty".
This phenomenon left me a little shaken up. It was like a little forgotten piece of my past that had crept up grabbed hold of me. It made me very proud that I had been brought up bilingual, and at the same time ashamed that I had let it slide.
I found out a minute later that the English name for the bird is "The Screeching Barn Owl". Somehow I prefer the French name.