Linguists interpret and translate written and spoken information.
Leonie Cornips is a linguist who has spent her career studying variations of syntax in Dutch dialects.
Fine for her, maybe tedious for not her.
Leonie spends her vacations on farms. She watches cows, listens to them, observes mood changes. She has changed her career path to interpreting cows. Humans seem to think that language makes them superior to creatures that chirp, neigh, bark or moo. Leonie realized that what comes out of the mouth is accompanied by body language and influenced by surroundings.
This isn’t about her, it’s about me. Early last Saturday my dogs kept staring at something I couldn’t see in the bathroom. I got a flashlight, down on my knees, under a cabinet and came eye-to-eye with a possum. I told it I was a safer rescuer than the dogs. She growled, hissed, resisted, then relaxed in my gloved hands as I carried her outside to safety or additional uncertainty.
Haven’t seen her since. But we really did have a talk. I’m pretty sure she said she came in through the dog door. I love her.