Squirrel!

[fujiko1601]

Yesterday I made the guinea pig video and forgot the camera in video mode. Today a squirrel had breakfast in our bird feeder and my mum wanted to make pictures. She didn't even realise she was filming it. The result is a lot of videos with the camera randomly jerking around and running commentary by mum and grandpa. XD

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Comments

[ditch_gospel]

Squirrel in action!

I find myself very distracted by the fact that I don't know what they're saying! Great view of the feeder out the window, by the way.

[fujiko1601]

Squirrel squee! XD

Can't complain about the view. :)

Let's get you undistracted then.

first video
Grandpa: He/she is so busy that there is no time to look (around).
Mum: good stuff is served here. Whoa, now!
Grandpa: There, on the wall.

second video
Mum: He/she likes the seeds... Only the ear is showing... The birds scare him/her as well.

[ditch_gospel]

Aww, their comments are cute. Just innocent, happy comments. It seems like they're both fond of animals.

Looking at your translation has made me curious, now. Is there a special pronoun in Estonian that means either he or she, other than it? Or were they actually saying he/she? Hope you don't mind me asking!

[fujiko1601]

Yeah, I guess it was their turn to squirrel squee. :) On the other videos there were some comments about the camera acting weird (lol).

Estonian doesn't have he and she, only one unisex word tema or ta for short. The same goes for Finnish where they use temä. I found it hard to decide what to use for translation, because I don't know the squirrel's sex and it is not used for live creatures.

[ditch_gospel]

That's so neat. I actually love the idea of having a unisex pronoun. I guess it would be somewhat similar to the unisex suffix 'san' in Japanese, which I also really like. That's interesting that 'it' is not used for live creatures, since in English, 'it' is very commonly used for any animals other than humans.

[fujiko1601]

It's much easier when talking about unknown people or transsexuals etc. On the other hand when talking to people deciding between polite you and familiar thou can get tricky. Maybe the difference between the use of it comes from the fact that it not always easy to tell an animal's sex. -san is awesome.

[ditch_gospel]

Oh, goodness, different levels of politeness does sound tricky. I think a lot of people would still use it to refer to a non-human even if they did know the creature's sex.