Monday, March 29, 2010

What is a dogs language?

Our house in Dalat where we were studying the language was built on a hill and in addition had a flight of stairs to get to the livng area. Our fellow missionaries dropped by now and then to see how the lower "classmen" were doing. And, we had a dog. One evening the dog began to bark. I proceeded to scold the dog telling him to "shut up", "be quiet", "get out of here", etc. Finally Bob Davis who was our senior language student at the time made his way up the stairs to the front door. With his unique whit, he calmly informed me that I had been speaking to the dog in English and the dog was Vietnamese and couldn't understand me. I remember sang, "Oh, that's right." Immediately it dawned on me that the dog not likely spoke Vietnamese either. So, I concluded that dogs must have their own language which I wouldn't learn since I wasn't there to preach to dogs.

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