Immigration 3: Squirrel

Language. Learning one is always an experience. Whether in school, at home or in a foreign country, the process is basically the same. Study the words, practice the words, stick the words together to form basic sentences and move on from there. Emphasis is rarely placed on the order in which you study based on your need. If you have all the time in the world, well hey, study whatever you want, whenever you want. However, if you need to communicate in a few months ... it’s all about the verbs. You must have the verbs and basic expressions. You can always point and say "What is that" or "I need those". Pronouns pretty much take care of your missing vocabulary.

No one told us that.

As I mentioned earlier, it took us about 4 months to get to the states. We left the homeland in mid May and arrived here in mid/late September. We spent a few weeks in Austria and the rest of the time in Italy waiting for permission to come to America. They were pretty lazy months for me (no so much for my parents, but this isn’t about them, yet ;)). I had a bunch of free time and my folks wanted to make sure that I used some of it to learn English. So they got me a book and every day for at least a little bit I studied.

The Book was a simple picture book. You know the type. A big picture of whatever on one page and on the other, in big, block letters, the word identifying the whatever. There may be a few sentences using the word, maybe a few more pictures, not much more.

I would open The Book, look at the picture and do my best to read the word. Boy, was easy enough, Dog too; Cat was a bit tougher. A C sounding like a K was a little strange but Dad helped and I got it ... sometimes in English Cs sounded like Ks. Weird, but I could handle that. And so on, I would randomly pick a page, recognize the picture, try and read the word and then keep repeating it over and over until I felt I got it.

One day I flipped open The Book and saw an animal. One that I knew from home, it was a cute little creature with it’s dark eyes, short reddish brown fur and an enormous fuzzy tail extending up and over its head, in its tiny paws it held a nut. It sat there on the page looking all sweet and innocent. It was a belka or belochka in the childish diminutive. A simple word, couldn’t be anything tough to pronounce. My eyes moved over to the word and immediately crossed. If I had known any profanity back then, I would have used it. S.Q.U.I.R.R.E.L. You have got to be kidding me!

I sat there, mouth agape for a little while, my eyes moving back and forth over the series of letters, trying to get at least my brain to grasp how their sounds would flow from one into the other seamlesly. It looked impossible. So I started slow. I tried the S and Q. That was doable so I added the U. A bit tougher, the jaw complained but I kind of got it. I felt that maybe this was actually going to work, maybe my parents were right. Just break it down, take it slow and I'll get it. So, brazenly, I threw in the I. HA! My jaw refused to cooperate. I tried again and again and again. My face had never gone through such contortions even when I was TRYING to make faces! If YouTube had existed back then my hillarious attempts at pronouncing the word may have made quite amuzing little videos ... I may have become a star. After a while I gave up and brought "The Book" to Mom for help, then to Dad ... we were all stumped.

I moved on to other words but I still occasionally flipped back to the page with the rodent. I mean, honestly, YOU try it. Really try to say the word as it is written ... can you honestly tell me that you can get your jaw to move from the U to the I without complaint? Now, of course, I know that SQUIRREL is actually pronounced SKWERL. I also know that the word has Greek and Anglo-French roots and in my heart of hearts I know that it must have been some sort of sadistic psychopath living in 1327 who took that innocuous U and followed it up by that ridiculous I!

To this day seeing the word "squirrel" sends small little shivers down my spine and my jaw spasms a bit just at the memory of those contortions. And the cute little belochka with its innocent black eyes and adorable tiny paws? It has a new name in my household. It's a Rat with a Fuzzy Tail.

A couple of links about those rodent things ;) Russian Squirrel pack "kills dog" ... Yeah, right LOL Pics ... if you don't see enough of those things in your neck of the woods :) Wikipedia