I consider myself an amateur bird-watcher. I can
pick out and identify most of the birds that regularly frequent my
backyard. In any given region of the
U.S. (or the world, frankly), there is a finite number of bird species that
live in that area year-round. Particularly, if they have special markings that
are easily identifiable, or they come in large groups to the yard or linger for
a while at the feeder, then memorizing the species and picking them out becomes
a snap. Indigo Bunting! Black-capped Chickadee! American Robin!
However, there are times when a bird alights on a
tree branch just out of good visual distance. Now, I can’t see the fine markings
or colorations on the wings or tail. Maybe this bird is not singing, so I can’t
identify based on song. Now, I can’t
rely on coloration, or color pattern or voice. The only characteristics I can
go by are general body shape, or the way the bird holds its wings when flying.
Does it flap or does it glide? Does it have a tiny songbird’s body, or is it of
a hardier stock? Does it prefer treetops or low-lying bushes? Sometimes these
features are the only things a birder
has to go by when attempting to identify her avian friends.
An article published in the autumn 2016 edition of Living Bird entitled, “It’s Raptor
Watching Season: Identifying Tail and Wing Shape Can Quickly Tell You What Kind
of Raptor You See”, focuses on the identifying characteristics to look for when
a bird is out of sharp viewing distance. It compares four different types of
hawk that frequent the northeastern United States: Red-tailed hawks,
Broad-winged hawks, Red-shouldered hawks, and Swainson’s hawks. Frankly, their
body size and shape are all very similar. Although the feather markings and
coloration are unique to each bird, from a distance, these fine details blend together.
This makes it virtually impossible to differentiate the birds
based on feather pattern alone.
As Brian Sullivan, coauthor of a guidebook on
raptors (aka hawks) states, “The average person is tempted to look at plumage
and size, but the first thing I look for is the shape.” He goes on to explain
that simply looking at the shape of the tail feathers and the wings gives
enough information for identification. For examples, a Red-shouldered hawk
flies with the leading edge of its wings arched forward, whereas a
Broad-shouldered hawk will hold his wing-tips straight out, not arching forward
or backward.
As a learner of the Spanish language, and therefore,
as a listener and reader of Spanish, I find many similarities between bird identification and language comprehension. As my blog reader, you may have
raised a brow at this point in today’s entry! However, I ask you to read on and
think about it. Take a language learner such as myself. I have been studying
Spanish, both formally and informally, for over thirty years. I have a
professional fluency in medical Spanish, because I have used the language daily,
both written and oral forms, with eye care patients in the office. I make time
to read Spanish novels or newspaper articles as often as I can, in a
never-ending quest to increase my knowledge of vocabulary and colloquialisms.
However, despite all this learning and on-going
quest to improve, I still come across
words and/or small phrases in articles that I read in Spanish that I do not
recognize. Either it is vocabulary I never learned, or vocabulary that I once
learned that I have since forgotten, due to lack of use of the word. The same
thing goes for oral Spanish. A patient will be speaking, and occasionally there
will be a word or phrase being said that is unfamiliar to me.
Let’s take, for example, a portion of an article
published in the online Spanish-language journal, El Mundo:
La cueva de
Lascaux en Francia es, junto con la de Altamira, el yacimiento de arte prehistórico
más importante de Europa. Desde los años 60, la cueva ha permanecido cerrada al
público, ya que las emisiones de CO2 generadas por los visitantes deterioraban
las pinturas rupestres que se han exhibido durante décadas. Sin embargo,
investigadores de la Universidad de Burdeos, encargados de la monitorización y
el mantenimiento del enclave prehistórico, descubrieron que los niveles de CO2
continuaban apareciendo periódicamente, a pesar de estar cerrada la cueva.
Fue entonces
cuando un grupo de investigadores de la Universidad de Oviedo desarrolló
un método que ha permitido estudiar la estructura del subsuelo para
buscar una posible fuente o vía de entrada de dicho gas. En esta búsqueda de un
posible canal de alimentación de CO2 hacia el interior de la cueva, los
científicos han hallado, para su sorpresa, una sala oculta en el conocido
yacimiento francés.
I am going to translate the article into English,
but as I do, I’m going to leave any word which I do not know the meaning of in
its original Spanish:
The Lascaux cave in France is, along with the
Altamira, Europe’s most important “yacimiento”
of prehistoric art. For 60 years, the
cave has been permanently closed to the public, due to carbon dioxide emissions
from the visitors deteriorating the “rupestres”
paintings that have been exhibited for decades. However, investigators from the
University of Burdeos, charged with monitoring and maintaining the prehistoric
enclave, discovered that carbon dioxide emissions have continued appearing
periodically, despite the cave being closed (to the public).
It was then when a group of investigators from the
University of Oviedo discovered a method that has permitted study of the subterranean
structure in order to look for a possible source or entrance pathway of said
gas. During this search for a possible source for the carbon dioxide emissions
inside the cave, the scientists have found, to their surprise, a hidden “sala” in the familiar French “yacimiento”.
I chose an article from
El Mundo’s Science & Technology section, simply because it is an area of
interest for me! As you can see, my level of Spanish is advanced enough that I
can easily translate most of the excerpt. However, despite my years of study
and despite my education and training in Spanish, there are a few words here that
either I have never heard of before or are being used in a different way than I
remember learning.
Not knowing these words
does not hamper my understanding of this article excerpt at all. I know that
there is a cave in France that has artwork painted on its walls from a
prehistoric people. I know there was a time when this cave was open to the
public, but was then closed due to fear of carbon dioxide (emitted from the
visitors upon exhalation) eroding those ancient wall paintings. I also know
that despite closing the cave, scientists discovered that periodically, there
are still carbon dioxide emissions
that have been detected and the scientists are working hard to figure out from
where these emissions are coming. While working to find the source of these
emissions, the researchers found a unique “something” inside the cave.
Because my level of
Spanish allows me to understand the overall meaning and intent of the article,
I can use clues from the surrounding sentences to make an educated guess as to
the meanings of these unknown words (unknown to me!) Here’s how I’ll break it
down:
Yacimiento. Sounds a lot like Nacimiento, which I know
means Birthplace in Spanish. But if the author meant to use
Birthplace, then surely he would have written Nacimiento, not Yacimiento. I’m
going to make a guess that Yacimiento means something along the lines of “source”
or “fount” or “archeological find/discovery”.
Rupestres. I don’t know any word in Spanish that sounds
like this. It mildly reminds me of the Italian Finestra, which means Window.
But I don’t think that is the meaning here. I’ll venture to guess that based on
the fact that it is describing the paintings of these caves, then perhaps it means “ancient”
or “fragile” or “rudimentary” or “seminal”.
Sala. Now, I know this word. During my elementary
school days, Sala was learned when reviewing vocabulary that describes rooms
in a house. The Sala is the living room. But is it living room here? Probably
not. I’d assume here it has a similar meaning, maybe “quarters” or “alcove” or “annex”
or simply an alternate word for “room”.
Let me look in the
Spanish-English dictionary and see how close I came!
Yacimiento:
Lugar donde se hallan restos arqueológicos. Archeological site.
Rupestres:
Rudo y primitivo. Dicho especialmente del arte y de la pintura prehistóricos.
Primitive.
Sala:
habitación de grandes dimensiones. Room with large dimensions.
So there you have it!
My educated guesses were correct! And this is exactly how and why I compare
bird identification to word identification.
Going back to the beginning of this blog entry, when the raptors are soaring
in the distance, they are too far away for me to scrutinize over feather colors
and patterns. Instead, I have to rely on their general shape – the general
exterior and/or surroundings – to aid in my identification of the bird.
Similarly, I may not know a Spanish vocabulary word, but I can infer its meaning by comparing the word
to its surroundings – the context in which it is used. The word doesn't stand alone, but instead is supported and enhanced by its environment.
References
Devokaitis,
Marc, “It’s Raptor-Watching Season. Identifying Tail and Wing Shape Can Quickly
Tell You What Kind of Raptor You See,” Living
Bird. 35(2016): 22.
Pérez, Carlos
Ocaña, “Investigadores españoles descubren una sala ocula en la cueva de
Lascaux, el ‘Altamira francés’,” El Mundo.
Accessed August 3, 2017, http://www.elmundo.es/ciencia-y-salud/2017/08/02/5980c745ca4741617b8b456e.html.
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| Please climb at your own risk Zadar, Croatia, 2011. Courtesy: D. Hromin |
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