Top Ten French Names for Animals Because Why Not at this Point

Hey francophiles. Crazy week, huh? (It doesn’t actually matter when you read this; I’m sure that week has been crazy too) In an effort to distract myself from the mounting horrors of the outside world and the mounting responsibilities of the inside world, I’ve started regarding my pile of books with a special kind of attention usually reserved for savants or madmen. From these hours of nervous-avoidant reading, I’ve come to realize that one of my favorite things about the French language is its propensity for having wildly better names for animals than English does. Sure, we can concede that simply everything sounds better en français, but there’s no arguing that the French know how to name their critters. I don’t really have any criteria for my ranking system, other than the explosive need to share these really great-sounding words with you. I will provide a rationale for each entry, so bear with me. Also, if it weren’t already apparent, this is not a list of cool French suggestions for pet names. As a piece of consolation, “Gigi” normally works fine.

Dolphins become bilingual in their sleep. What does that mean for us humans?

At the Planète Sauvage in Port-Saint-Père, France in 2011 it was observed that captive dolphins were talking in their sleep. While sleep-talking in general can be rather alarming, what made this even stranger was that they weren’t speaking the same dolphin language they speak during their waking hours. Instead they the sounds were closer to a whale language!